A/N: The last chapter felt a bit short. Since some of you have waited a while for more chapters, I decided to work on two chapters within the same day. Enjoy!

Chapter IV

"Are you going to answer those?" Hightail asked.

All Might looked down at his phone to see four new texts, all from Izuku. One to say good morning, another showing a picture of him in his school uniform, and another of a worn composition book titled Hero Analysis for the Future No. 9, followed by: i've been working on these since i was six. want to see.

He responded: Shouldn't you be paying attention?

"False alarms," he said, leaning back in his chair and putting his phone back on the table. It buzzed again. Izuku sent a sad emoji.

"Some fan leak your phone number or somethin'?" Dozer asked as he fiddled with the toothpick in his mouth.

The other three heroes who had tried to apprehend Hikaru Kazama before All Might intervened sat in a white room at a steel table with Automata at the head. The robot hero was in the process of explaining what they had done with Hikaru and the potential threat he still possessed.

"We couldn't place him in standard containment because of his ability to absorb electricity from certain distances," she said, her vocal output still warbling from Hikaru's strike. While she was physically unaffected, the supercharge got to some of her software functions. "We've determined that maximum distance to be ten feet. Therefore, he's being confined in Agamura."

Agamura was a rocky island prison, built specifically to hold criminals and villains with quirks that relied on electric sources. There were no computers to log information, only old-school papers and pens. The guards even carried lanterns in place of flashlights in case someone could sap the batteries for a quick charge. There were no phones or radios to contact the mainland or each other. They depended upon two telepaths—a pair of twins—to relay information: one on Agamura and one stationed on the coast facing the man-made island. Kei was the more powerful one and stayed on the island to pass information between the guards and to his brother Kaito, who lived in a beach house with his family simply waiting for his brother to tell him what was going on at Agamura and replicate those reports to give to the government.

"Alright, so he's nice and comfy in a cave and we don't have to worry about a thing," Dozer said. If Automata had a face, it would have been a nasty glare aimed at one of her sidekicks.

"It's not the criminal himself we need to worry about," she said. "It's his motive. Hikaru's genocidal."

All Might straightened in his seat and crossed his arms.

"Another 'quirkless shouldn't exist' kind of villain?" Hightail sighed. "Tragic."

"The opposite, actually," Automata said. "He thinks those with quirks should be the ones exterminated. Those were his words, too." Her output buzzed as she replayed a recording of Hikaru's questioning that had happened days prior: "We're a disease, don't you get it? A pestilence. We should all be exterminated off the face of the earth!"

"Then I say he should start with himself," Dozer said. "One less villain to deal with."

"We don't want anyone dying," Hightail interjected.

"The idea," Automata continued, "is that he wants to take as many heroes, villains, and even civilians with him as he can." She played another clip: "The level of violence has only gotten worse with quirks. We have to roll it back. Those twenty-percent quirkless can rebuild. They're the only ones who are genuine humans now."

"What do you think, All Might?" Dozer asked, nudging the hero sitting next to him. "You're awfully quiet over there."

All Might inhaled, pulling himself from his own memories.

"It doesn't sound like a popular stance," he said. "Except maybe in some of the quirkless themselves."

"That's a fair point," Automata said. "Eighty percent of the population would not agree to their own extinction."

"But Hikaru's not quirkless, obviously," Hightail said. "So, why would he want this?"

"There's always a sad backstory with these loonies to explain it," Dozer grunted. "We got his history yet?"

"Still searching," Automata said. Her shoulders lowered. Though she was no longer human, she tended to imitate the body language to make up for a lack of face.

"Even you can't find it, boss?" Hightail asked, sounding a bit frightened that her mentor had limitations.

"The police couldn't find his name in the database, so they ran prints. Everything's come up barren."

"A phantom…"

"Too bad beating the tar out of him for it is inhumane," Dozer complained.

"Indeed it is, Taichi," Automata said, lacing the sentence with an underlying threat by using his name. "We want to know where he got this ideology, but we're not going to be violent about it."

"But he is safely contained," All Might confirmed.

"For now, sir."

"Good." He stood up, taking his phone off the table and putting it in his pocket. "Glad to hear you've all taken care of it." Hightail wiggled in her seat and Dozer nodded. "If you find his history, please don't hesitate to call. There might be more like him out there."

"Of course, sir."

The Number One Hero walked out of the room into a brightly lit hallway. As soon as he had closed the door behind him, he heard Hightail letting out her restrained excitement from meeting All Might and then Dozer telling her to keep her fangirl squeaking to yourself. He pulled his phone out to look at a new message from Izuku.

sorry

He texted back: It's fine. I'll take a look at those books next time, okay?

The response was almost immediate. ALL OF THEM?

Sure, all of them.

thank you!

Now focus on school.

All Might made his way to the roof of the building, a safe spot to de-muscle and become Toshinori once again. The tight fit of the shirt fell like a sheet on his shrinking torso. The heat from flexing to maintain the form released as steam off of his skin. He slumped against the railing, feeling like paper against the wind. It felt that if the gales were strong enough could break his spine backwards against the metal.

"Already too old for this," he groaned.

He didn't lie to Izuku. He was crippled from a bad fight roughly a year ago. His body rapidly withered with the trauma. It couldn't hold his quirk for more than six or eight hours now, and he was told the time limit would decrease over the years. With the loss of his physique, he had to take on two identities. One was All Might, the Symbol of Peace, Japan's top hero; the other was Toshinori Yagi, nobody, almost exactly how he was before he was gifted a quirk. He couldn't fault Inko for feeling like she would be a liar towards her son if she told him he could not follow his dreams in becoming a pro hero. He himself had lied about being quirkless.

He felt his pocket buzz and pulled out his phone. Inko.

"Think of the devil," he murmured. He answered it. "Hey, Miss Midoriya."

"Hi, Toshin—Uh! I mean, Mr. Yagi."

"You can call me Toshinori if you want to."

"Not until you call me Inko."

"Sounds fair. What's up?"

"I was wondering, um, are you… It's okay if you're not, but, are you free Saturday?"

A pang of nausea crept into the remnants of his stomach. He realized that he hadn't thought this through. On paper, hero work was scheduled, but every pro hero was expected to be on call and ready to fight and rescue at all hours of the day and night. There was no such thing as days off, especially not for All Might.

"I'll let you know," he said. "I work on a flexible schedule, but I'll try and let you know by Friday, Saturday morning at the latest."

"Oh…"

He sensed the nervousness and hesitancy in her voice. "Miss Midoriya?"

"Yes?"

"Did you want to go somewhere on Saturday?"

"Oh! Uh, Izuku wanted to meet you again at the playground. He said you were interested in his hero notebooks."

"That, yeah. He showed me a picture of the one he's working on. He said he's been at it since he was little."

"He's obsessed with heroes."

"I can tell. Nine volumes of notes, huh?"

"He documents everything about every hero. Even some of the ones that are already retired."

"Do you know why he does it?"

"I'm not sure. I thought he was doing it as a cope. I've seen some of the notes. He's come up with strategies of his own and combinations for hero teams and new moves… Like he's a coach."

"So if he can't be a hero, then he wants to help them."

"Do you think so?"

"That's my best guess." There was silence on the line for a moment. "Miss Midoriya?"

"Yes?"

"The same park, right? Where we met?"

"Mm-hm."

"I'll let you know. I promise."

"We'll be there after lunch."

"Yes, ma'am."

"…Bye."

She hung up so fast that he barely had the chance to say goodbye as well. He was about to put his phone away when it started buzzing again. He was starting to feel incredibly popular today.

But it wasn't a call. It was a local alert. A system connected to nearly every phone to let people know about nearby ongoing crimes. Heroes used it to engage, and civilians used it to avoid danger. Another villain was rampaging through the subways, putting thousands at risk of injury or death. He stood up and rolled his shoulders back.

"Guess it's time to get back to work."

xXx

A/N: I'm getting a better feel of where the superhero plot side of the story is going, so I'm gonna play it safe and change the rating to T.

Not sure if a place like Agamura exists in canon but I'm making it up anyway because that's what fanfiction's for. I'm probably going to make up a lot of other stuff as I go along. lol