What? An Update? How unusual! Still, I'm alive and writing, as surprising as that may be. Doc Ock's giving me trouble though, inspiration doesn't seem to wanna come for that one.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters presented in the story below, all rights to said characters go to their respective owners.

Stockholm Syndrome: Kyouka Jiro

Chapter 3

Misery Loves (my) Company

Three sharp knocks on the door was all the warning Kyouka was given before the Villain who'd kidnapped her barged into the RV, pizza box in hand.

Unfortunately for him, she'd been doing her level best to fight off the adrenaline crash she'd been going through, struggling to keep her eyes open. At that moment, she'd been attempting to stay awake through the use of her TV.

What all this meant was that she had a remote control in her hand which, despite being handcuffed, she managed to hurl at her kidnapper.

Bright green eyes widened and he, in a display of impressive reaction speed yet questionable judgement, immediately threw himself back out the still open door, crashing onto the ground with a noticeable thud. The remote, once on a collision course with his face, flew through the now clear doorway and clattered onto the warehouse's concrete flooring.

While she couldn't see him from her current position, she did hear him groan and shuffle around, before there was a slight pause and a soft 'oh' reached her ears.

Several seconds later, the villain's unmasked, unsmiling visage stepped back in through the door, clutching the now-scuffed remote in one hand and a slightly crumpled pizza box.

Almost sheepishly, she opened her mouth to spit out an apology before remembering that he was a Villain and not some random teen, and as such, didn't deserve one. She settled for clicking her jaw shut and pointedly looking away from his less-than-amused glare.

"Good throw," he maybe-complimented, walking further into the RV and haphazardly chucking the scuffed remote onto the sofa as he paced by. "Spot-on aim, actually. Probably could've done real damage if it'd been heavy enough. Practice with throwing knives or something?"

Almost curiously, her gaze followed the greenette as he went to the kitchenette, placing the pizza box on the counter before rummaging around in a drawer for something. Moments later, he withdrew a paper plate.

"Maybe." she curtly responded, not exactly desiring to start any form of conversation with the teen.

She actually had been a rather avid knife thrower a couple years back, something she picked up accidentally while hanging out with Kaminari. The knife throwing was his hobby, but the electric blonde sucked so bad Kyouka taught herself the skill just to try and help him.

As with most things though, his attention span ran out shortly thereafter and Jirou was stuck with what she considered a mostly useless skill. Turns out though, knife-throwing directly translated to remote tossing.

She'd make a great angry drunk, at any rate.

Her captor made a grunt of acknowledgement and set about opening the box, questioning her once more.

"Hope you don't mind mushrooms and onions on your pizza. Boss's orders."

A few hours ago, she'd be grilling him on what he meant by 'boss'. Now though, she had a pretty good inkling on the boss's identity. After all, her own father often referred to Kyouka as such, especially in her younger years when she had even less of a filter.

"By 'boss', you mean… your daughter?"

Some sort of emotion flickered on the teen's face,and for the life of her, Jirou genuinely couldn't decipher it. He recovered quickly though, an indifferent mask thrown atop his features as he used a plastic fork and knife to pick up a slice from the box and deposited it upon the plate.

Almost begrudgingly, he answered. "Well… yes. Er, I'd like to… well… lets just say I'm sorry."

Jirou cocked an eyebrow at him and attempted to fold her arms, but the magnetically locked cuffs prevented it. She settled for snapping at him.

"For the leg? Oh! For the kidnapping, right? No? Hurting my friend, maybe? Attacking UA in general? Being born? You'll have to make your apologies a bit more specific, I'm afraid."

Much to her own frustration, her tirade made him frown for less than a fraction of a second before it turned into a lopsided grin.

"I was referring to my boss's earlier… comments.. She's a bit, ah… naive about how relationships work."

"Gee, I wonder why…" she deadpanned at him, only to receive a roll of his eyes in return.

"Alright, you're not exactly wrong, but I think it's pretty obvious she's adopted. I'm doing my best here."

"First off," she started, raising her cuffed wrists and holding up a single finger. "You're a Villain. Villains shouldn't be taking care of kids. Second," another finger raised. "Your Quirk obviously isn't some 'youthful features' crap, which means unless you've got freakishly good genes or you're… what, sixteen at most? I don't think I need to explain why that's not an appropriate age for raising kids."

For some unfathomable reason, something she said got a rise out of him if the greenette freezing and taking a deep breath before attempting to talk again was any indication.

"Fourteen, actually," he eventually corrected, much to Kyouka's own mild surprise. "As for your other points… uh… yeah, I got nothing." he admitted with a shrug. "As a Villain though, it's not like I exactly care about the law, right?"

While he may have had a point there, that didn't make it right.

With a shrug of his own, the greenette grabbed the plate and carried it over to the couch she'd yet to get off of, depositing it on the armrest nearest her. "Just… try your best not to stress out. My fight's with UA, not you. You were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"As a student, I'm pretty sure I was exactly where I was supposed to be." she retorted, narrowing her eyes at the man.

"Again, Villain. Logic doesn't apply to my actions." he countered, crossing his arms and adopting a cocky, self-assured grin. She wanted nothing more than to bruise those freckles on his cheeks while she caved his pearly white teeth in with her fist.

The pair of them engaged in a stare-off of sorts, before, with an embarrassed cough, the teen realized Kyouka had no intention of continuing the conversation. Quite awkwardly, he attempted to strike it up again.

"R-right… well, just a few questions and I'll leave you alone. Firstly, I'm gonna try and grab you a pair of crutches so you can move around your RV. Ever use those before?"

Again, Kyouka elected not to speak, continuing to glare at him instead.

" … ooookay, uh… medication!. Any allergies I need to be aware of? Need pills? Inhalers, insulin, vitamins? Some sort of special equipment necessitated by your Quirk like earplugs?"

This time, the awkward silence stretched on for quite a lot longer and Kyouka realized he might've been serious about the whole racked her brain for a few seconds trying to think of something that would help her escape, but couldn't think of anything beyond Trigger, which, while he probably had access too, she doubted he'd retrieve for her.

Also, she had no interest in doing Trigger either. Reluctantly, she finally replied.

"… no medicine needed." she sighed, rolling her eyes and looking away from her strange kidnapper.

The teen clapped his hands. "Excellent!"

Just as quickly as he'd barged in, the greenette turned on his heels and made to exit the RV. "I'll be back later if I can find those crutches. Try not to take my head off when I come in next time, alright?"

"Maybe don't barge in uninvited?"

"It's my RV. I can come in whenever I want."

Again, just because he had a point didn't make it right.

Closing the door behind him, Izuku walked several paces away before letting out a sigh. Yet again, the things he sought continued to elude him.

He just… didn't get it.

He'd talked to Shigaraki about it, he'd looked it up online, he'd discussed the phenomena in chatrooms and grabbed first-hand perspectives on the subject. By all accounts, he was doing exactly what everyone else was, and yet he never felt what they so obviously did.

Whenever he got bullied, it was obvious his tormentors enjoyed it. They smiled, they sneered, they laughed, all of it. Villains did the same things, too! He'd seen it on TV as they taunted the Heroes they fought; the superior smirks and 'holier than thou' attitudes.

"So why do I just feel guilty? Being a jerk's supposed to feel good."

That's not to say he always felt bad. Back at the USJ, that rush he got when he successfully flew out of the USJ without interference was amazing, and he had a feeling he'd get that same rush when this was all said and done.

Still, it was in these moments between the action, as he planned and waited to make his next move, that the guilt he harbored seemed to crawl out from his innermost depths to torment him.

He was fairly certain these reactions were unique to him. Or at least, not very widespread. There was no way his old school bullies felt guilty about what they did, otherwise they wouldn't have done it every single day.

"Halfway there… halfway there. Just a bit longer and you can stop…" he mumbled to himself, marching back towards the RV he and Eri shared.

Even as he repeated that little mantra to himself, the urge to simply give up reared its ugly head again.

Fatherhood was not something Izuku ever gave much thought to. In complete honesty, whenever he did think about it he was usually depressed because his diagnosis as Quirkless was a pretty undesirable trait to have nowadays, especially four generations since the rise of Quirks.

Anyone who had a kid with him would basically be throwing a wrench into their child's genes.

Now that he'd adopted the role of Eri's father however, he thought he understood the parental mindset. That feeling inside you, urging oneself to do anything to make your child happy. To provide for them.

He never thought he'd fall victim to those feelings,but then again, Izuku never figured he'd be a Villain either. Life had a funny way of working out.

He couldn't give up Villainy, no. Eri needed protection, and he couldn't do that as a civilian. For several reasons, he could never do that. If he tried to go back to civilian life, not only would he have to deal with the League seeking revenge upon him, but he'd be stuck in multiple levels of legal trouble.

Technically, he wasn't a Villain. He'd never used a Quirk in his crime, and, considering he was still fourteen, courts would be hard-pressed to charge him as an adult. He'd be in trouble alright, but probably nothing more severe than juvy and whatever community service/counseling crap they'd make him attend. The real issue is what they'd do to Eri.

They'd take the girl to have a full medical checkup as per standard procedure, her Quirk would be discovered and then consequently reported to the national registry.

That was just asking for the Hero commission to come kidnap her.

One of the few things he'd actually learned from his time spent with Shigaraki, Hero society wasn't as idealistic as he'd always pictured it. It wasn't the flaming trash heap Tomura described it as either, but it still wasn't a field of roses.

The people in charge of the Hero Commision were little better than white-collar criminals, businessmen and women only in it for the money and prestige. Their little 'program' of acquiring gifted younglings and raising them to be Heroes was little better than indentured servitude.

Sure, they'd technically be free to do whatever they want, but they'd have a childhood filled with nothing but biased education shoved inside their heads and lifetime contracts that basically said 'we own you' in big black font. Like their latest success story, Hawks.

Sure, he could cancel his contract with the commission anytime he wanted. But the house he lived in (that they owned) would be taken away, and all his bank accounts (controlled by the Commission) would deny him access. He could leave, but he'd have to start life from scratch, all while dodging around whatever political maneuvering the commision did to make his life after them as miserable as possible.

That was NOT a fate he'd allow Eri to suffer. She'd already been through enough.

Izuku was going to raise her just fine and when she was finally an adult and the commision couldn't touch her in any way, shape, or form, she'd finally have a chance to be whatever she wanted.

It would be all too easy to abandon this revenge-quest against All Might, and devote his efforts towards more lucrative ventures that would allow him to facilitate a permanent escape. So far, efforts on his part to create a nest egg in case he needed to run away had failed spectacularly, as he was basically living paycheck to paycheck.

He could just abandon his crusade and focus on robbing banks or something. Smashing into armored cars wouldn't be too big of a hassle with a few specialized drones, and he could probably make a machine to sort through the stacks of cash and rip out the dye packs and GPS trackers.

Possibly out of sheer stubbornness though, he didn't want to.

Izuku refused to be a failure at this. He might have failed at being a Hero, but he wasn't going to do the same as a Villain. He HAD to succeed. Had to prove to himself and All Might that he could do something important. Something big.

With a shake of his head, the greenette banished all those thoughts from his mind and silently plodded over to his and Eri's RV on the other side of the warehouse in silence.

His RV wasn't just parked out in the middle of the warehouse for all to see, rather, he'd hidden it behind a stack of long-abandoned shipping crates piled into the northeast corner of his warehouse. Well… perhaps 'hidden' was a poor term for it. Really, it just wasn't immediately visible to anyone who barged in.

Passing through a slightly corroded blue crate, he came out the other side to find his RV where he left it, lights inside still on. Through the cloth curtains, he could see a small shadow occasionally flitter about inside, pacing the length of the RV over and over again.

A strange feeling welled up in Izuku upon witnessing that. It was… unusual, seeing his surrogate daughter adopt his mannerisms. He himself had picked up the habit of pacing from Shigaraki by accident and as such, he wasn't entirely sure how he felt about Eri emulating that behavior.

Still, it was better than mumbling.

"Eri? I'm back!" he called out upon reaching the door, before opening it slowly. Past experiences taught him that she didn't particularly enjoy sudden intrusions without knowing who was coming in.

Izuku would be lying if he didn't understand a bit of that fear, as well. Overhaul had a habit of just slamming open doors and coming inside to do whatever he wanted without preamble.

Soon after he'd stepped over the door's threshold, a white blur collided with his midsection and two tiny arms wrapped around his waist. Bending down as much as he could, he wrapped his own arms around the little girl as well.

"You're back! Did you visit Mama? Is she gonna have dinner with us?"

Again, against his better judgement, Izuku couldn't bring himself to totally crush the young girl's hopes. "Ah, well… not tonight, sweetie. Mama needs some time to settle in, you know?"

The horned girl frowned a bit, but otherwise didn't comment. Gently, Izuku disentangled her limbs from his waist and pushed her towards their miniature dining room. As she made her way over, Midoriya himself entered their kitchenette and focused on the two large pizza boxes he'd placed there earlier.

Just as with his 'guest' earlier, paper plates were quickly withdrawn from the cupboards and set upon the countertop, and Izuku began portioning out the slices.

"Uhhh… n—na-muh-stae?"

As usual, the greenette couldn't help but crack a smile at his little unicorn. "I'm still going to cut your pizza for you if you don't take small bites this time. There will be no choking in this house."

The white-haired girl pouted, sticking out her bottom lip as she gripped the hem of her shirt. It transformed into a smile when he dropped a paper plate loaded with two slices of her mushroom and onion pizza onto the table in front of her, though.

"By the way," he began, loading up his own dish, "Namaste's a Hindu thing, not Japanese. You don't have to say it here."

Hearing no response, he glanced over to the table, only to roll his eyes as Eri attempted to shove an entire slice into her mouth at once. A few mushrooms jumped ship and smacked lifelessly onto the plate below.

Only once she'd succeeded in cramming half the slice into her mouth did her red-eyed gaze connect with Izuku's, and she sheepishly withdrew most of it to take a more acceptably-sized bite. In this case, that meant a third of the pizza instead of half.

He was very tempted to take her plate follow through on his threat of cutting her slices, but ultimately elected to wait until she inevitably came back for seconds.

While she wasn't related to Izuku through blood, she did happen to share a defining Midoriya family trait: surprisingly large appetites for their size.

She could and would easily inhale a large pizza if given the opportunity. Left alone for a day, she could probably wolf down three.

Thankfully she wasn't a very picky eater and tended to like anything he fed her. Getting her to eat veggies wasn't a problem whatsoever. In another stroke of what was probably luck, the girl loved her fruits and preferred those as snacks instead of junk foods like chips.

Really, her only vice seemed to be candy.

The sweet tooth on that girl was unparalleled and so far, that had been the only thing he'd ever had to 'put his foot down' as it were with his surrogate daughter. Because as much as she might want to, she could not, in fact, have candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Izuku closed the pizza box and left it on the counter, grabbing his own plate and making his way over towards their tiny dining room table. The wooden furniture was advertised to fit four, but was really meant for just two people. Three, at the absolute most.

Idly taking a much more reasonably sized bite of pizza, Izuku grabbed the nearby TV remote and flipped it on, staring at the screen he'd set up a few meters away in their living room. Flipping through the channels, he quickly switched to the Hero News Network and settled down into his chair.

"—still hasn't released many details despite multiple requests, citing 'ongoing investigations' as the reason for secrecy. Despite this, many have speculated that UA was assaulted by a large group of Villains, though the perpetrators are currently unknown. Principal Nezu has promised to give a press 'as soon as humanly possible'."

His eyes narrowed at the television as the female newscaster continued blathering on.

"Soon as possible? What's with that?"

Midoriya had not anticipated this. No one had died.

Well… he didn't think anyone had died. Besides, if someone did die that information definitely would've spilled over. They were trying to keep a lid on something… but what? The only thing he could think of that was moderat—

…

Would Shigaraki loudly boast to everyone about how he knew of All Might's weakness?

…

Alright, maybe it wasn't that difficult to figure out what they were trying to keep a lid on. All Might was injured. That was painfully obvious when he escaped. They were trying to figure out how to spin the story to make an event that resulted in All Might getting injured seem as minor as possible.

The greenette muffled his sigh of disappointment by shoving pizza crust into his mouth. Before he could do much more though, a little ding interrupted his musings.

Reaching into his pant's pocket, he pulled out his phone and stared at the cracked screen, eyes widening slightly in surprise. One of the last people he expected to talk with him had sent a message.

Kurogiri.

'Sensei has inquired about your well-being. He's requested you come by for an examination by the Doctor, after the USJ fight. You have his word you shall not be harmed. I shall open a portal at the usual spot.'

"Papa?"

The greenette's eyes jerked up from his screen, and, belatedly, he realized he'd probably been staring at it with an open mouth.

While he always figured the Doctor wouldn't care that he ditched Tomura at the USJ considering his obvious dislike of the manchild, he certainly never expected that All for One would apparently feel the same way.

He didn't think he'd anger the Quirk stealing man either but All for One was content to let Tomura lead the League and fulfilled his every request whenever possible, even if it was stupid. In doing so, he supposed that was teaching Tomura about the responsibilities of being a leader; how even his best laid plans (much like the USJ, though that wasn't exactly a well thought-out endeavor) could fail.

Without a shred of doubt in his mind, he knew Tomura had already demanded he be blacklisted from the League. Until about fifteen seconds ago however, he was also 100% certain All for One had shrugged and agreed to it.

Seems the man's odd interest in Izuku paid off.

Clicking his jaw, Midoriya addressed the curious stare of his daughter. "Ah, sorry, Eri. I'm… gonna need to go for a bit. It seems I have an unscheduled doctors appointment to attend."

She winced, averting her eyes from his own and staring at the floor. "Y-you're not gonna bring back any more needles, are you?"

Izuku sighed, "Not for you, Eri. Just me."

Needles were one of the things his unicorn despised with a passion. Sadly, the greenette wasn't going to let her live with him in this warehouse filled with rusty metal without taking precautions. He'd paid the doctor to steal a full set of vaccines,and administered them to Eri about a month back.

Tetanus was not an enemy he had any desire to fight, even if it made Eri flinch away from him when he discussed medicines.

Standing up from his seat, Izuku grabbed the last slice on his plate and made his way towards the RV's door, sparing a glance back at the unicorn.

"I'll be back soon, I promise. No overnight trips this time, this should only take an hour at most."

She nodded, but didn't verbally acknowledge him. He couldn't say that action didn't hurt him, a tiny bit.

"Eri, I'm gonna trust you to be responsible here. Please, don't visit our guest, alright? She just wants to eat her dinner in peace right now."

She managed a half-hearted 'mmhm' this time around, and, with a sigh, the greenette exited his RV. His footsteps carried him across the cracked concrete flooring, heading for the warehouse exit.

While annoying, there was no way in hell he'd ever reveal the coordinates of his actual base to anyone in the League. So what if he had to take a fifteen minute taxi to get to his designated spot?

Nemuri Kayama, AKA Midnight, was normally one to engage in the practice known as 'sashaying'; sometimes dabbled in the art of 'sauntering' and would, on occasion, 'flounce'. With her image as the 'R-rated Heroine', she'd quite literally conditioned herself to sway her hips whenever she walked anywhere, simply to keep up appearances. It took barely any effort on her part to perform the act nowadays.

Today however, even the miniscule amount of mental exertion she required to flaunt her goods was too taxing for her mind to handle, so instead of seductively swaying her way down UA's halls, she was instead speed walking.

She wasn't even doing a light sprint to force her breasts to bounce around!

With a groan as the phone in her jeans buzzed, Kayama reluctantly picked up the pace. Midnight was none-too-pleased by her newly appointed duties, nor the constant messaging her phone received as a result of them.

With Aizawa put up for the foreseeable future thanks to his injuries it fell upon Midnight to become Nezu's go-to for information. Why, was debatable. Perhaps it was simply that out of all UA's staff, her schedule remained the lightest in terms of workload, what with everyone else's being shuffled around to deal with maintaining order at the school, media distraction duties, investigative efforts, etc.

Perhaps the rat just liked seeing Kayama flounder about while trying to do a fairly simple task.

Either way, she got the job. Aizawa had it previously because his 'no nonsense, tell me what I want to know three seconds ago' attitude was great for both receiving, acquiring and then relaying information expediently, in both senses of the word.

None of those were skills Midnight claimed to be particularly good at. Still, she was stuck with it, so she'd do the best she could. Plus Ultra, right?

Nezu should just cave in and download the Cacophony app, already. The group text set up for the staff members was slow, and not nearly as user-friendly as the chatting app. That old fashioned rat refused though, maybe he really did just like watching UA's staff run around like mice in a maze across UA's campus through his damned security cameras.

In either case, her new duties decreed that she had to grab information and report it to any interested parties. In this case, that meant all involved parties. Nezu himself, other teachers, cops, lawyers, the whole shebang.

For probably the millionth time in her life, Midnight mentally thanked the workshop that custom-made her cushioned high heels. If she had to waltz around in regular heels she probably would've keeled over by now.

First up on her dossier for today was the Support Workshop. As part of their efforts to determine who kidnapped their student, UA claimed the wrecks of the drones as the USJ as their own, and sicced their resident mechanic on the job. It was his responsibility to rip what was left of them apart, put it back together, and figure out any secrets the contraptions may have held.

All she had to do was parse through the support course teacher's tech-speak.

As she rounded another corner, the development studio's sign hanging in the distance at the end of the hallway, she was forced to suppress a shudder. If Higari mentioned anything about the coffee machine she'd be giving him a piece of her mind.

And probably a whipping too. Not the fun kind of whipping, either.

Huffing, the woman closed the remaining distance between her and UA's 'powder keg', sliding open the huge, reinforced metal door, quickly traipsing over to Powerloader who was hunched over his desk staring at the desiccated remains of the mechanical drones recovered from the USJ. As she made her way over, his eyes spared her a momentary glance and he grunted in acknowledgement of her presence.

Even if she couldn't summon the will to saunter, she still had the presence of mind to summon a teasing smirk to her face, cockily resting a hand on her hips as she came to a stop in front of his station.

"Awh, Higari~" she leered. "Is that anyway to greet your beloved coworker? I like my men to have a little more energy, y'know. I may have a pill for that if you need a pick-me-up!"

"Oh I need a pick-me-up, alright," the man grouched, standing up and popping his spine as he did so. "Too bad someone mangled the coffee machine."

Nemuri managed to keep the smirk on her face, though her right eye definitely twitched once or twice. Blowing air through her nose, she shrugged and leaned over the Support Course Teacher's desk, readily invading the man's personal space.

"Sticks and stones, my friend. Why don't we get down to business, hrm?" she asked with narrowed eyes.

Clearly not sensing the danger he was in, Higari shrugged and gestured to the dusty, disfigured remains of machinery on his desk. "This is both literal garbage, and a masterpiece of engineering."

Kayama raised her eyebrow in surprise. She expected a long-winded, techy explanation full of words she couldn't even begin to understand. Perhaps this would be easier than she thought?

"Coming from you, that's high praise. Really though, a masterpiece?"

The lithe engineer shrugged slightly and hunched back over his workstation, once again picking over the parts of the salvaged camera-bot.

"Alright, 'masterpiece' was a bit of alliteration on my part, but the point stands. This thing is genuinely hideous, but it's surprisingly well built at the same time. Well… sort of. These wires here?" he gestured, pointing to several exposed and horrendously frayed wires sticking out one half of the device's sole remaining propeller blade, "Totally useless. They're connected to what I think is the main power source, but then they're not hooked up to anything else. It's like someone started wiring it, left for an hour and forgot it, then came back and installed functional wiring elsewhere. I'd almost say it was done for aesthetics, but, again, it's hooked up to the main power source. They're live wires."

The man perked up, as if remembering something.

"Oh yeah! Check this out, too!" he exclaimed, before suddenly flipping the device over in a not-so-gentle manner, causing a large spray of dust to fly out of the half-decayed contraption. Now that the device was flipped over though, Midnight could see Powerloader's metal fingertips pointing at what appeared to be large, rusty metal spears with prongs jutting out the sides at perpendicular angles stabbed through the machine's chassis, three of them to be exact.

The Support Course teacher looked expectantly at Kayama.

"… mind spelling it out for me?" she half-pleaded, flashing the man a winning smile.

He deadpanned. "Oh, c'mon. Surely you know what these are! I know you're not great with technology considering what you did to the staff's coffee machine, but really?"

"All the more reason you should just explain it. Slowly." she shot back, her mood souring just from the mention of the break room's accursed machine.

He should know better than to mention that blunder.

The man sighed dramatically, as though he'd suffered a great personal loss, "Ugh, fine. They're TV antennas, and rather ancient ones at that. Like, 2052 at the absolute latest. Best guess, they receive and transmit signals from this thingy here," again he gestured to what at one point might've been a large video camera, though it looked as though someone ripped the casing off of it and splayed the internals as far apart as physically possible in some ghastly, graphic, technologically gory display. Dirty, corroded circuit boards and exposed wiring were literally everywhere, half of it stuck together with twist ties and what looked like hot glue. What appeared to be wooden popsicle sticks were used as rudimentary support beams to keep several components from touching one another.

"I don't know if this thing actually recorded footage and sent it anywhere or not, but I can tell you this. Whoever this Villain is, he's likely responsible for the signal jamming that happened at the USJ."

Again, Midnight's eyebrow arched. "Really? What makes you say that?"

"The Villain's Quirk may be responsible for controlling those drones, but I doubt he's got the capability of seeing through the lens of a camera too. He wouldn't have installed these antennas if he didn't need his robots to send and receive signals. As such, he would've had to know a specific way to counter or get around the signal scrambling, which meant they either assisted in or were entirely responsible for said jamming." he readily replied, shrugging a bit.

Kayama sighed, rubbing her temple in frustration at the man's confident proclamation.

"The more I learn about this guy, the more confused I get."

Her colleague nodded sympathetically. "Tell me about it. This drone gives me a headache just looking at it. Again, it's garbage, and I'm not entirely sure how it even flies, let alone how that camera worked. But at the same time, it does function, and based on what happened at the USJ, they function rather well."

The R-rated heroine raised her hand up to her chin in thought; one of her colleague's earlier remarks had piqued her interest.

"Actually Higari, back up a second. You said the guy's Quirk controls these things? Howd'ya figure that?"

He shrugged. "Only thing I can think of, really. Again. I don't see how it functions. If we got an intact one, maybe I'd be able to discern more. As it is we have literal scraps of the one that attacked Aizawa, which had an explosive inside it for some reason, and this one's half dust and clearly got thrown around a lot. Simply judging by the components used in it's construction, I'd say the device can't function on its own, and the guy's supplementing his sub-par mechanical knowledge with a Quirk. It's possible I'm wrong, but unless you can grab hold of a drone that hasn't been horrendously mangled so I can dissect it and check what it's internals look like when it's 'normal', that'll be the best opinion I can provide."

"So, basically, the thing's too damaged for you to provide us much of an answer." she summarized.

The man nodded in agreement.

"Yep. Again, everything in this particular drone looks like seventh-hand stuff. Like, 'I dug this out of a hole in the ground and repurposed it' levels of tech here. I may have recovered a single fragment of a high-tech, military-grade circuit board from the exploded drone, but I can't definitively say for sure if that's true. It's entirely possible anything I'd recognize as functional tech got disintegrated here," he claimed, pointing to the missing half of the drone, and the pile of ash now littering his workstation.

"Nezu won't be too happy to hear that."

Powerloader shrugged again. "Hey, I'm not particularly happy either. This drone's the equivalent of someone turning in a Doctoral-level thesis on Advanced Nuclear Physics, but it's written entirely with crayon and the handwriting's barely legible."

The woman squinted.

"What kind of an analogy is that?"

"One I put about as much effort into making as you put into changing the coffee machine's filters."

Elsewhere in UA, Aizawa's bandaged visage cracked a thin smile (or as close to a smile as the Underground Hero could get), for a part of his brain distinctly trained to recognize suffering registered the sound of one of his colleagues being smacked.

"Welcome, Jury Rigg," Kurogiri's unnervingly smooth, disembodied voice echoed around the room, hardly distracting Izuku as his eyes rapidly scanned the room he'd stepped through the portal into.

'One exit, a single door. Flimsy-looking, probably plywood. Easy enough to kick down. Room's small, no noticeable hiding spots beyond the cupboards, highly unlikely that Shigaraki's inside.'

"Garaki will be by soon. Please, make yourself comfortable," the misty bartender droned, before the speaker or whatever he was using to project his voice into the room turned off, as did the portal Izuku stepped through.

'Actually… what if there aren't any speakers? That mist is part of Kurogiri's body… maybe he can project his voice through the portals themselves? Could he open a tiny portal inside a cupboard and use it to listen in on conversations, or to speak through? Does the size of the portal affect his volume? Could it be tha—'

A low chortling distracted Izuku from his thoughts, and his head whirled around to the doorway.

"I see you've still got that mumbling habit, Midoriya. Though, you are getting better at it," an ancient, familiar, and utterly despised voice called out, causing Izuku to scowl slightly. Even though he knew he'd be dealing with The Doctor when he got that text, that didn't mean he had to like it.

At the very least, he hadn't opened the door without permission. Barging in on Izuku unexpectedly was a good way to get something thrown at you.

…

Alright, maybe he didn't have the right to be angry at his 'guest' now that he thought about it more.

"… come in," Izuku sighed, standing back from the door and hopping up on the cheap, mass-produced examination bed shoved into the corner.

It was your standard doctor's room, something you'd see in a typical middle-class office. Small, barely larger than a bathroom, walls painted a dull blue, an examination table taking up 3/4ths of the entire back wall, a cabinet with a sink built into it, and a red, plastic tub for disposing used needles. There was a small flatscreen TV embedded within the wall, as was standard for all League-affiliated hideouts.

All for One loved to listen in.

The Doctor stepped into the room soon after, and again, Izuku fought off the scowl at seeing his former pediatrician once more. The man he once knew as Dr. Tsubasa, but now only recognized as Doctor Kyudai Garaki, All for One's (and by extension, the League's) personal physician.

The man was short, bald, chubby, had a gigantic, unkempt mustache that prominently stood out on his face, as did the pair of unusual goggles he wore in place of glasses. He looked exactly as he had ten years ago, but with a life-extending Quirk like he had, Izuku supposed that was normal.

After all, he was apparently well over one-hundred years old, despite looking somewhere around sixty.

"Ah, Midoriya. Still haven't given up, I see," he smiled, the action causing his face to wrinkle into dimples that would fit perfectly on a kindly grandfather.

'You should probably give it up. Your child can't be a Hero without a Quirk.'

It made the greenette's stomach curl in disgust.

"Yeah, well. You still ain't dead so I guess we're both defying nature, huh?"

"I suppose we're both disappointments, in that regard," Garaki smirked. "Come now. Since you're here we might as well do a physical check-up. You know the drill."

Izuku rolled his eyes but wordlessly complied, sighing as he stripped the jumpsuit off his torso. As the fabric fell from his shoulders, the boy's torso, absolutely riddled with scars, came into view. Just below his left collarbone, the skin of which looked as though it'd been set aflame at some point, were the remnants of a large, grisly puncture wound. The teen's backside has a similar scarred over perforation at roughly the same height, also covered in burned flesh.

"Right, shoulder first…" Kyudai mumbled, moving forward to run his hands along the boy's contracture scars.

Midoriya grit his teeth in discomfort more than pain, allowing his flesh to be poked and prodded by the physician.

"Pain is still minimal? How's your mobility doing in the arm, hrm? It seems our treatment has grown your missing muscles back nicely…"

Reluctantly, Izuku nodded. "Mobility's pretty good, not many issues in that regard. If I reach too far I can feel my skin pulling itself sometimes, but that's about it. Pain's… manageable. I… think most of it's just… in my head."

Garaki turned to quickly jot down a note of some kind on the little pad he kept in his pocket, grumbling something under his breath. "Good, good. If you keep stretching you should get used to the tightness of your skin, that's simply a side effect of your scarring. Nothing to be too concerned over unless it's a detriment to your mobility. Might as well refill your painkillers while you're here, too, I suppose. They have been helping, right?"

The greenette mumbled and shoved his hand inside his pocket, withdrawing an empty orange bottle from it's depths. The doctor raised an eyebrow at the teen and took the vial, scrutinizing it from behind his goggles.

"Do try and restrain yourself, next time. I'd rather not be responsible for creating another drug addict," the doctor griped, placing the empty vial in his pocket for later.

Midoriya mumbled a few… select words under his breath and shrugged noncommittally to reign in his growing frustration, prompting a sigh from the man.

"My dear boy…"

Izuku swallowed his anger and instantly sat at attention. Garaki followed suit, but he did it more out of respect than fear. The damn monitor set up in the corner of the examination room had flickered to life, it's annoyingly bright 'no picture' text blaring in all it's red-colored glory, center-screen.

"Your health is very important, Midoriya. You should follow the good doctor's advice," he rumbled, voice craggly yet silky smooth at the same time.

"Thank you, Sensei," the doctor smiled in appreciation, directing a small nod towards the TV screen.

Despite not knowing if the man could actually see it, Midoriya trained a small glare on the screen. "And why, exactly, do you care so much? You're always chiming in on my exams like this, so what's the big deal, eh? Get some kinda rush from seeing the mess you've made?"

Kyudai had turned around and seemed to be studying the greenette with a curious expression. While the TV gave away no indicators, he had the distinct feeling All for One had cocked an eyebrow at his declaration, as well.

"Oh? The mess I have made? Whatever do you mean, Izuku?"

"Shut. Up," he hissed, gripping the table he sat upon with all his worth. "You do not get to call me by name. I'm not some brain-drained slave like Shigaraki you can manipulate. What, do you think I'm stupid?! I know exactly what you did…"

To his own consternation, his angry outburst only seemed to amuse the man behind the screen.

"Oh-ho! Seems you do have a bit of your father in you after all, there's that fire! Please, do go on!"

"What, you want me to spell it out for you? It's obvious!" Izuku shrieked, gesturing wildly at the mildly-amused, rotund doctor in the room with him. "That's… it's Tsubasa! MY pediatrician! The one I saw exactly three times for Quirk examinations, and then never again! Need I spell it out any further?!"

"Hrm…" the doctor grumbled. "I'd honestly thought you'd forgotten about that, to be honest."

"Like I'd forget the worst day of my life, Garaki. No, No i know what happened. I did have a Quirk. I had Telekinesis. And you told All for One, and had him steal it. Just like you've done to countless others, I'd bet. You," Izuku turned back to the TV screen, "Are just here to laugh at the Villain you inadvertently created. That's why you're so damn interested in me. I'm a cosmic joke to you."

"Wh— the Quirk he… what? You think he stole—"

Garaki's rambling question/word vomit was cut off by a low chortle coming across the monitor, the sound comparable to grating rocks together.

"Is… that the conclusion you've come to?"

"What other conclusion am I supposed to come to?" Izuku spat. "Every DAMN time you offer me a Quirk, it's 'telekinesis this', 'telekinesis that'. Hell, you offered me fire breathing once, so you obviously know all the Quirks my family has. You just think it's so hilarious that stealing my Quirk made me a villain, don't you?"

Midoriya clicked his mouth shut and focused on breathing through his nose, a technique he'd mastered to stop himself from shouting or crying out long ago. His glare continuously shifting between Garaki and the monitor, Izuku awaited a response of any kind. His eyes only narrowed further when he noticed Garaki was smiling at him like he was a gift-wrapped present.

Another chuckle sounded out from the television screen, followed by a slight cough.

"Well… when you lay it out like that I can certainly see your point of view. You aren't wrong about how my good doctor assisted me in acquiring Quirks. However… you have my word I have never stolen a Quirk from you, Midoriya."

Like a balloon allowed to release all its air, Midoriya deflated, his expression turning undeniably confused.

All for one didn't generally lie, in his experience. It's not that Izuku didn't think he wouldn't, but rather the man had no need to do so unless it provided him with a tangible benefit. As far as he could discern, lying in this situation provided nothing beyond possible amusement to the crippled Villain.

"Heh… so close yet so far away, my boy. So close. Have no fear, all will be revealed eventually,"

Before Izuku could interrogate the man, a crash from several floors below, followed by the muffled sound of barely comprehensible screeching distracted all three of the room's occupants. The monitor released a weary, bone-deep sigh.

"It appears… that Tomura has been besieged by NoobMaster69 yet again. I must attend to my other charge before he dusts his console. Again. Farewell for now, Midoriya. And remember to take care of yourself. After all… who will watch over Eri if you're not around?"

Midoriya growled as the screen cut off it's audio feed, leaving him to stew in his thoughts with the still-grinning Garaki.

Sensei loved to taunt Izuku with the girl he'd been living with. It was obvious he knew Midoriya cared deeply for the girl, far more than he'd ever admit to. If he could've lied about her existence, he would've. Sadly, he needed Garaki's help in nursing her back to health and was forced to talk about her in order to get the necessary medicines to ensure a speedy recovery.

All he was able to truly do was hide the nature of her Quirk, and even then the greenette knew All for One probably had his suspicions about that. The only reason Izuku wouldn't let Garaki examine her in person would be to hide the child's power, after all

He was trapped between a rock and a hard place and he couldn't see a way out. All he could do was vent his frustrations on others, or in this case, All Might. He'd worry about All for One later.

…

'Maybe I'm going about this all wrong. I'll never be able to fight All Might… but All for One could…'

Perhaps the solution to both his problems was staring him in the face, after all.

Start Video Log 004

The screen crackles to life and after a flash of static, Izuku Midoriya is seen once more in the plain concrete room from the previous video, sitting in a visibly dented folding chair. The folding table from before had been set up in front of him, an aged cardboard box rested upon it. He was digging around inside it with a slight scowl on his face, arm deep in the box.

The greenette inclined his head towards the camera. "You have no idea how nerve wracking it was to get this thing."

The scowl on his face became slightly puzzled, and he proceeded to pull out a broken action figure of what might've been All Might, it's entire head and half it's torso melted into a strange, blackened goop with streaks of red and blue.

"I completely forgot this existed. Just another thing I failed to fix, I guess."

The scowl on his face became more pronounced and he reared back as if to throw the doll, before deflating and simply letting it fall from his hand onto the floor below with a sigh. That done, he proceeded to continue digging around inside the box.

"This box," he started, steadily pulling out what looked like old clothing and unceremoniously dropping them on the table "is something I've recovered from my old room. Now, most teens hide things like saucy magazines or condoms deep inside their closet so their parents don't find them, you know?"

With a grunt of exertion, the entire box was then lifted up and hastily tipped over, it's contents tumbling out onto the table. What appeared to be several dozen empty tubes of toothpaste and smaller boxes of various colors, more crumpled clothes, the mangled remains of a textbook, and two first-aid kits clattered around on the metallic surface.

"Me? I hid this stuff instead." he triumphantly proclaimed, spreading his arms wide as though he was a shopkeep at the bazaar hawking his wares.

Grabbing one of the many empty tubes of toothpaste, Izuku held it up to the camera in the palm of his hand. The camera blurred for a moment as it focused in on the new object, but soon the slightly faded words of 'burn cream' could be visible upon it's label.

"Burn cream, for all the, well, explosions, you know. Uh…." he stumbled, searching around the dumped contents, before snagging one of the many multi-colored boxes, tossing each one aside and picking up a new one as he named them.

"Medicated gauze, butterfly bandages for when I got some really deep cuts, antiseptic wipes… I think you get the gist of it."

"Oh! I remember this one!" he exclaimed, turning to the wrinkled bunches of fabric scattered across the table. With an exaggerated flourish, one of the white lumps was snatched up and unfolded before the camera.

It was a very simple T-shirt, in all honesty. Entirely white, with the kanji for 'clothing' written upon the chest in bold, black font. Besides being very wrinkled and rather small, obviously for a much younger version of himself, there was absolutely nothing noteworthy about the fabric.

Another exaggerated flourish, Izuku turned the shirt around and immediately, its importance became clear. Just below the bottom right of it's collar the shirt was missing a large swath of fabric, and the torn off edges appeared to be singed, the cloth taking on a slightly blackish-orange tinge around the obviously burnt edges.

Flinging the article of clothing aside, Midoriya proceeded to grab a pair of cargo shorts and presented them readily to the camera, it's rightmost pants leg noticeably torn and, again, scorched. The pants soon found themselves carelessly cast aside, falling onto the floor.

Another piece of clothing was hauled off the table and into view, another shirt this time, with a very noticeable, vaguely star-shaped hole right over the stomach of the fabric. Again, the edges of the hole seemed as though they were singed.

"See, my mother was something of a worry-wart." he explained, continuously showing off more damaged clothing to the camera. "Like any parent, she absolutely abhorred the idea of her child being hurt. Obviously, that sort of stuff happens to any kid, that's just life after all, but all this never came about from regular old roughhousing."

"This…" he gestured to the various empty burn creams scattered across the table and his destroyed clothing "is bullying in the twenty-fourth century. Give a child a stick, they'll smack someone with it. Give them a rock, they'll throw it at someone."

Izuku stood up from his chair and placed his leg on the table, rolling up his left pants leg up to his thigh and pointing at what appeared to be an old, faded burn scar.

"Give a kid the ability to generate explosions from the palm of his hand?" he rhetorically asked, tilting his head at the camera and looking directly into the lens.

"They'll blow someone up."

His pants leg was unrolled, and the teen smoothed the fabric back down before taking his seat once more, grabbing another pair of pants and digging around in their pockets.

"I got hurt… a lot." he explained, gesturing dismissively with his free hand. "Hazards of being born Quirkless. Had to hide all this so my mother wouldn't find out. None of my teachers cared, but whenever mom found out I'd gotten hurt, she'd call up the school and, you know, yell at 'em. The school never cared, though. They said some bullshit about how it'd 'never happen again' and that they'd 'take care of it'. They never did. No one ever did." Izuku frowned as he yanked out a handful of bandage wrappers from his pockets, as well as what looked like old faded receipts.

Grabbing one, Midoriya brought it close to his face and attempted to decipher its contents.

He gave up after exactly two seconds.

"Yeah, I can't read that," he proclaimed, tossing the faded paper over his shoulder. "Time washed all the ink away." The teen looked around at all the junk cluttering his table now and sighed, seemingly disappointed.

"Honestly, I'd show you more of my scars, but aside from that starburst scar you just saw on my leg, the handprint seared into my freakin' ankle and half a burn on my hip," he stated, pointing to his left side. "There's not much original damage to show."

With a roll of his eyes, Izuku went back to sorting through the piles of clothing and trash he'd dumped onto the table, seemingly searching for something specific. After a few moments of silent shuffling, the teen decided to provide a running commentary as he continued.

"See I was kidnapped a while back, yes that was something that actually happened, I didn't just run away from home, and the guy I was stuck with had the most amazing Quirk I'd ever seen. He could manipulate the molecules of anything he touched with his hands and rearrange them into anything he wanted. Anything! Do you have any idea how powerful an ability that is?" he questioned, momentarily pausing his search to clamp his hands to the sides of his head, frustratedly pulling on his viridian curls.

"When he activated his Quirk, he sped up too. His hands would move at unbelievable speeds, near subsonic, really. If he touched All Might with his pinkie finger he could kill the guy in an instant. No exaggeration." Midoriya explained, slumping down further into his chair. "Wanna know what he did with this power?"

"Blew people up to collect blood samples and bits of their internal organs."

Midoriya grabbed the hem of his jumpsuit and lifted it up, showcasing his horrifically mangle torso. The skinny teen's ribs were visible, and there wasn't much of a gut on him either, though he wasn't quite malnourished. Certainly, he was unhealthily thin but it wasn't horrendous. The only thing of note besides that though, was how scarred his skin was.

The teen's un-tanned flesh had dozens of long, white scars that looked to be either caused by a whip or knives, raking across his flesh and crisscrossing with no apparent order. There were several burns, but unlike the starburst-shaped ones the teen previously showed off, these were obviously caused by someone heating up a piece of metal and pressing it against his skin, as the outline of what looked like a length pipe, the letter O, and what might've been the imprint of a shovelhead was seared into his chest.

After holding up his jumpsuit for another moment, the teen let it fall back down and shook his head, continuing to shuffle through the pile of stuff on his table.

"Dammit…" he cursed, lightly smacking his hand upon the table in frustration. "Can't find 'em…"

With another roll of his eyes, the teen addressed the camera once more. "See, the guy I was held captive by would torture you with his Quirk by ripping you apart and then piecing you back together. It may have been fast for him, but if you were on the receiving end of it, you got to feel your molecules being slowly ripped apart piece by piece. Honestly, it wasn't too bad until he started touching your nervous system. That, that hurt."

"Still, it's torture for a reason. You're supposed to live through it. Once he was done, he'd take your molecules and put 'em right back where they were supposed to go, or at least, close enough that it didn't matter. Scars have a particular shape, too. Reassembling scars though, is a legitimate waste of time. Thus, when he pieced me back together, I simply got a brand new, unscarred torso out of the ordeal since that was easier than putting me back the way he found me."

Izuku reached into one of his many pockets and pulled out a tiny green party popper, taking a moment to tug the string and flinching slightly when the device let out a tiny 'pop' and confetti spewed out of it.

"I've actually got a video of me getting torn apart, but I'm not gonna show that here. The internet's pretty lax about Villain manifestos really, but if I showed off gore it'd probably get taken down. Eh, whatever," he mumbled, almost as an afterthought. "The cops who raid my base will find it. They can shove that deep in their private servers somewhere…"

Slumping over his desk, the greenette dismissively waved his hand and looked away from the camera. His final words were barely above a murmur.

"Whatever… no one cared before, no one'll care now. Why the hell do I even make these?"

End video Log 004