Chapter 2

A World Without Light

Midoriya sat in rapt attention, his body ready to fight even as he listened – someone had trained him well, was Shota justified in pride if it had been some version of him? – as they went back. Way back. "So, generations ago, people started to develop extraordinary abilities. We're on the same page with that part, right?" Midoriya nodded. "I'm not sure of the exact divergent point, but I have a theory. For as long as I can remember, I've heard rumors about an underworld figure with unimaginable power. A man who can give and take away powers on a whim, and who rules from the shadows with an iron fist. A man whose existence you've confirmed for me tonight."

"All For One," Midoriya said under his breath.

"Whatever happened in your … world, or timeline, or whatever we want to call it … to curb his rise to power, didn't happen here." Midoriya looked positively green. "There are no pro heroes. A few vigilantes, but they're risking themselves against the law and against the shadow underworld. People with desirable powers … 'Quirks' have a way of disappearing. If they're lucky, they reappear a few days later without their quirk, no memory of what happened, and with their genes tampered with to prevent them passing on their quirk. They don't usually find out the latter for many years, of course, but by now, you know to expect it. Unfortunately, it also means a high risk of having a child with a lethal genetic illness." Tears were forming in the boys' eyes again – Shota would have to call for more water. "And of course, given the rumors about the nature of All For One's power, no one wants to risk handing him a dangerous quirk to keep for himself or give to some underworld scum, that might be used to hurt them or their loved ones in turn. So, if you have a quirk that could be used for evil, which is most of them if you're creative enough, it behooves you to keep that fact to yourself. So you understand why I stopped you from using yours today. It was as much to protect you as it was to protect Eri and her uncle." Midoriya bristled a little – understandable, considering the sickening story he'd shared. Realization dawned on the boy's face, and he stared at Shota, aghast.

"Mr. Aizawa, are you … with …" He was so horrified it was almost funny. His counterpart had left a good impression, at least.

"No. I protect the kid, that's it. You've seen what her power can do, she has to learn to control it, and someone has to be able to stop her if she loses control. I used to teach other kids, but her case is so precarious, I'm on call twenty-four seven, so to speak. When Chisaki came to me, I almost turned him down, but I saw the fear he had for her. She needed someone to protect and teach her, no matter what family she comes from. I said yes, with the condition my involvement with the syndicate would start and end with the girl."

"So … you're still a teacher, just in a different way," Midoriya said thoughtfully. "But … why did things go so differently in this … how did I get here … can I get back …" the boy had descended into thought, murmuring out loud as he sat contemplating his situation.

"We'll figure it out when we can," Shota said, breaking him out of it. "For now, we need to get you out of here. I'm going to try to talk Chisaki into letting you go – if he sends for you, I want you to look really contrite and be honest, but try to avoid talking about what happened with him and Eri in your world. I know that's hard, given how things went down, in your experience. But in this reality, he loves that little girl, and you scared the hellout of him." Midoriya made a face, briefly, but rearranged his expression and nodded. Good boy.

Chisaki was waiting in his living room, arms draped over the back of the sofa he was sitting on. If you didn't know him, he'd have looked unbothered. Shota, unfortunately, knew him. And his stomach churned, thinking of Midoriya's tale – how narrow was the difference between the realities, how much had it taken to push the man before him from Eri's caretaker to her torturer? "Well?"

"I think you should put him up for tonight, let me figure out what do with him tomorrow."

Chisaki dropped his pretense of nonchalance at the audacity, leaning forward as his eyes flashed with anger. "The hell I will. The little creep knew Eri's name and chased her for a city block!"

"Well, he sounds crazy. But the thing is, I don't think he is. He's either delusional, or he dropped out of a parallel universe." That was certainly not a sentence Shota had ever expected to say, and yet. It truly was an age of miracles and wonders. "The fact he knew her name, my name, and a lot of other details is what inclines me to think it's the latter."

"Let's say I choose to believe that. Why the hell was he chasing Eri?"

"He saw a little girl he knew with someone he didn't, he thought she was being kidnapped." He decided to bite his tongue on the reason Midoriya had wanted her away from Chisaki in particular. "He saved her in the other world," no need to say from whom. "You can't be mad at him for trying to protect her, Chisaki."

"Saved her? That's convenient. Can you provide any proof, any at all, that he's not just insane? Or lying?"

"He had a notebook full of notes on various heroes, including notes that line up with what I know about people in this reality, but that suggest he knew them in a very different context. He has what appears to be a very legitimate school ID for a hero school and a governmental provisional license for hero work – I don't have to tell you why those couldn't have existed here."

"So, he has props," Chisaki said dismissively.

"Just talk to the boy, you'll see what I mean."

"Um, Mr. Chisaki, Mr. Aizawa, I have a suggestion …" Shota glanced to see Aiko Namura standing by the door. She was so quiet he hadn't even noticed her come in.

Chisaki nodded to her.

"I used to nanny a little girl whose power I think could be useful. She had a form of telepathy where others' memories would manifest as artistic inspiration after she spoke with them. How old is the boy, Mr. Aizawa?"

"Fifteen."

"Emi's almost his age now, I'm sure she could draw some of his memories, then we would know."

Chisaki rubbed his temples for a long moment. "Do you think you could arrange a meeting discreetly?"

"Yes, I should be able to work something out."

The young lieutenant turned to Shota. "All right. Put him wherever you want, I'll pay you back if this turns out to be true. If he's crazy, it's your money, if anyone gets hurt or he escapes before we know, it's your head."

Shota bowed. "Understood. Thank you."

Mr. Aizawa came back not long after he'd left, carrying a set of clothes.

"Good news, the boss is letting you go for tonight. You'd be better be telling the truth, Midoriya." He untied the ropes and handed Deku the clothes. "Get changed. I think my clothes will swallow you, but they'll at least draw less attention than what you're wearing now." Mr. Aizawa turned his back as Deku changed. As he changed out of his costume, Deku retrieved his things from the pockets. His notebook was there, so was his wallet. But no phone.

"Mr. Aizawa, do you know where they put my phone?"

"Sorry kid, they smashed the phone. They didn't want you tracked if you were sent by someone." It stung a little – Mom was going to be upset about replacing a third phone in a short period of time. If he ever saw her again … no, he couldn't let himself think like that. He'd spent the whole time he waited for Mr. Aizawa to speak to Chisaki, worried sick about his friends and family, especially Leto – had she managed to fight off Katzu? But he couldn't worry, he just had to hope for the best. He fastened up the pants and buttoned the shirt – both of which were too big for him, but he didn't look like a little boy playing dress-up, at least. He was especially grateful Mr. Aizawa had given him a belt so he could secure the pants to his waist so they didn't look too bad.

"It's okay. I was just thinking … I wanted to look up some things."

"You can use mine. What are you thinking?"

"I want to see if … I want to see if I have a counterpart, if any of my friends do." He already had a sick feeling that Todoroki didn't – if there were no pro heroes, and people with strong quirks had to hide, quirk marriages certainly weren't a thing.

"That's a good idea, start looking on the way over."

When Deku was dressed and his things, including his folded-up costume, were put away in a small canvas bag, Mr. Aizawa led him out of the shed and through a gate in the high fence that surrounded the house – at least it was a house, and not the compound they'd fought in before, he wasn't sure his nerves would have taken that, into a small lot out back. They got into a small car that had seen better days, and Mr. Aizawa passed him his phone with the screen unlocked.

It didn't take long to find this reality's Izuku's social media. At home, Deku had locked his down as soon as All Might had chosen him, not wanting anything to come back and embarrass him later, and then he'd been so busy he'd barely updated it. That was not the case for this Izuku, who was still posting at least once a day on a public account. It was disorienting to see his own face and writing style in posts that were totally alien to him. His counterpart was going to school at a very respectable high school, and it looked like he was studying languages. He wants to be like Dad and work abroad, Deku thought, and he couldn't tell why that made him uncomfortable. But the biggest shock came only a few posts down.

There was a picture of his counterpart – still rail thin, having never had to train to accept One For All – with an arm around an upper elementary school girl that looked like Dad's spitting image, tagged as Tamako Midoriya. They came to a stoplight as he stared. "You find something?" Mr. Aizawa asked.

"Yeah I … my … my counterpart has a little sister here, I was an only child at home. My parents … I was their miracle baby, I don't know how or why that's changed."

Mr. Aizawa was thoughtful for a moment. "They probably got financial assistance to see a specialist to have another child. The government incentivizes those without powers to have children any way they can."

"But both my parents have quirks …"

"Are they anything that could be hidden?"

"Yes, even in my timeline they don't use them much."

"Then there's your answer. Anyone who can get away with it registers as powerless." The thought of his parents – his parents! – lying to the government was almost as shocking as the moment he'd wondered if this reality's Mr. Aizawa was a Yakuza.

Deku quickly looked for his friends. Kacchan was also online, but hadn't updated in almost six months. Deku wondered what his ambition was in this world, but couldn't glean it from what he saw. After many searches, he was satisfied he was right about Todoroki, and that made his chest ache. Uraraka was here, and he hoped she was safe and had kept her quirk secret as it was certainly a valuable enough quirk for her to be a victim of the horrible process Mr. Aizawa had described. He found Iida too, and judging by the many pictures of him with his older brother in uniform, in this reality he came from a family of police officers, not pro heroes (though their quirk was certainly useful for that, he was sure). He went down the list, finding everyone except Todoroki, Yaoyorozo, and Ashido, and every absence made him feel faintly ill, as did the fact that many of his classmates' posts seemed to indicate their homes were much worse than what he knew in this world. "How's your luck?" Aizawa asked.

"I found most of my classmates but … is it … I know everyone who can pretends to be quirkless, is that just because of All for One and the incentives or …" And as soon as he spoke, the full implications of said incentives hit him.

"It's not great. It's not illegal, obviously, at least not yet. But they get as close as they can. If you don't have quirks, you're incentivized to have children, if you do, you're incentivized to not have children. But the eugenics fails because people lie about it, a result that any rational system would have predicted. There are strict laws about using powers in public, and taxes to help cover for damage to property that only fall on people with registered powers, and a million other stupid little things. Which is why, like I said, everybody that can get away with it lies, and the government continues losing a battle with the inevitable tide of genetics."

"But … why?"

"Part of it is an organic attempt at control. Your reality sounds better, in many ways, but chaotic. Governments don't like chaos. And that natural desire for control and regulation is exasperated, I suspect, by the shadow underworld's agitation."

"All For One? Why do you call him the shadow underworld?"

"Until today I didn't have confirmation he existed. And even considering that confirmation, it's not just him – he has a gnarled, extensive network of underlings, that probably grows by the day. It's an underworld even more secretive than the one you stumbled into today. And one that terrifies even the Yakuza – not that they'd admit it." Deku felt sick. Even if Yoichi Shigaraki had, for whatever reason, been unable to push back against his brother, hadn't anyone else tried? There had been heroes then, and there'd been generations since. Maybe they had tried, but all failed. Which meant All For One had been gathering power, in all forms, unchecked, for generations …

Deku clenched his fists in determination. Even if he knew how to leave, he couldn't. He didn't know what had happened, but he had to help. He had the same light that had beaten All for One before, that had never ignited in this reality for whatever reason.

"We're here," Aizawa said, pulling into a hotel. "If I can convince the boss, I'll put you somewhere nicer later."

"We didn't … go to your home?"

"I didn't want to keep you there. I've been staying in Chisaki's home ever since Eri reverted a house plant to a seed in a panic over a nightmare about six months ago."

"Will she be all right for tonight?" Deku asked, knowing he'd frightened her and feeling guilty, though he hadn't known to behave any other way.

"She hasn't done it since, and we've been working on control."

The rooms were a little rundown, but they were clean. "Which bed you want?"

"The one closer to the window," Deku answered, and almost immediately Mr. Aizawa collapsed onto the other bed, removing only his jacket and not bothering to change. "Will it bother you if I watch TV?"

"Just keep the volume low," Mr. Aizawa said, not looking up from the bed.

Deku put it on a news channel, with the volume as low as it could be and he could still make out what was being said, and opened his notebook. He had to get a sense of this world and start watching now, so he didn't make any more dumb mistakes. He'd watch until the adrenaline of the shocking day wore off, then he'd get as much rest as he could, and face the day tomorrow.

It was a slow news day – most of the news was about a fierce debate about the federal budget, with people on opposite sides of various budget-related issues getting into heated arguments. Mr. Aizawa seemed to be asleep within minutes. The news was dull enough that it started to lull Deku to sleep. He felt the agitation leaving his system and his eyelids staring to grow heavy, and he removed the shirt and loosened the belt and tucked himself into bed, and set a sleep timer on the TV.

And just as he was about to nod off, something caught his ear. "This is a breaking news story, coming from Hosu City we've just heard that there's been an attack on the police station. Live at the scene we have Kasumi Nishida, reporting for K20 news." Deku sat up, instantly fully awake, expecting a villain attack. But the footage that the station cut to showed an undamaged station, and everything seemed calm. "According to officers inside, there was no damage to the property, but all computers have been sabotaged in an unspecified manner and various materials left in the building indicate that metahuman agitators are responsible." Deku turned up the volume slightly, hoping it wouldn't wake Mr. Aizawa. The reporter motioned the camera towards a banner two officers were removing that said, "Do your jobs! Find Them!" and included somewhat low-definition photos of several faces, some of which were people with obvious quirks. Deku was suddenly very sympathetic to the "attackers."

"Ms. Nishida, do the officers believe it is related to the Society for the Defense of Metahuman Rights protests that have been held outside this station for the last few weeks?" the main anchor asked.

"Officers say it's too soon to say, though some of the officers we've spoken to tonight have stated unofficially that the SDMR is responsible."

"K20 has not been able to reach anyone at the SDMR for comment, but as a reminder, this was the official statement by Society spokesman Tenko Shimura earlier today." The station cut from the live footage of the reporter to recorded footage of a man with neatly kempt black hair, dressed sharply in a dark blue suit, standing before a podium, surrounded by chanting people holding up signs with pictures of children and dates of abduction. Wait … Wait …

Deku stared the entire time the man spoke, simultaneously sure that he was looking at this reality's Shigaraki and convinced that it couldn't be. The man on television now had much better skin, for one thing, unscarred and a normal tone, and his hair was black. The man's voice didn't help matters – he'd know it anywhere, but it wasn't raspy and didn't drip with menace here. The man spoke calmly, but with power and confidence behind his tenor voice. "The SDMR has every intention to continue these protests, at this station and others, for as long as investigations into these metahuman abductions continue to stall or go unopened. The police are sworn to protect and serve the populace, and yet they've completely turned their backs on forty percent of the population." Deku's stomach tightened. He hoped that half of the population of Quirk users had successfully concealed their quirk, and not that the eugenics Mr. Aizawa had described had been more successful than anyone in this reality could possibly realize. "Every day, parents just like you are terrified to send their children to school, to let them play with their friends, even to run errands or go on family outings. Every day, families just like yours go through the terror of child abduction. Some never see their children again. Others live with the trauma of lost time, lost abilities, and lost possibilities for the future, with their numbers growing every day. And that's been the reality for decades. Government and law enforcement agencies have been ignoring heinous crimes perpetrated against millions of citizens in this country alone. We will continue to push back until there is justice, until there is safety for every citizen. Until metahumans know peace, no one will." That last threat, though it carried something very different (presumably) than it would have in his reality, it brought enough familiarity to his tone that a shiver went down Deku's spine.

"Shigaraki?" he said out loud without meaning to.

"What's going on, Midoriya?" Mr. Aizawa asked sleepily, lifting his head from the pillow.

"That … That man … he's … in my reality he's …"

Mr. Aizawa glanced at the TV as this universe's Shigaraki … well he wasn't Shigaraki in this universe … said he wouldn't be taking further questions and stepped down from the podium, taking a sign with a picture of a child from a protestor who'd been holding it for him. "You know him?"

"He's the one who attacked our school!"

Mr. Aizawa sat up, sleep gone from his face. "You're kidding me."

"No! I wouldn't!"

"Huh. Good to know at least one person was better off in our reality."

Deku's head spun. "Are you … are you sure he's a good person? Maybe he's a spy or something?"

"If he is, he's been doing the best performance of any actor in the world for years now. Even when he was a high school student, he was doing work for the Society. The media runs his name down every chance they get, he's the target of endless harassment, he's even been shot, and he still gets out there, every day." The admiration in Mr. Aizawa's voice was apparent. Deku shook his head at the strangeness of it, but refrained from saying anything.

Of course, in this reality One For All hadn't existed, and pro heroes didn't exist. All Might's sensei had probably never faced All for One, or any villain, and neither had her husband. So she hadn't had to put her family in hiding. So Shigaraki … Shimura hadn't been taken and twisted by All For One out of spite. If he ever got back to his reality, surely it would warm All Might's heart to know his sensei's grandson had turned out well in this reality, at least. At least there was some good news he could bring from this world.

It wasn't just Shimura who was better off, he realized. Eri had clung to Chisaki and called him Uncle. She felt safe with him. She was happier here, despite the same initial trauma she had at home (presumably). He was grateful for that as well.

The sleep timer turned off the TV, and Deku took his cue to try to fall asleep despite his busy mind.

Tensei's feet were heavy as he trod back to the police station. "Traitor!" someone in the crowd yelled, and his partner chuckled. He ignored both, like he always did.

They'd been canvassing the area where they'd gotten a strange 110 report for hours when they heard about the incident at the station. Several people had called in about a teenager chasing a little girl, but then, miraculously, not a single CCTV had caught the incident, and none of the witnesses wanted to talk, not even the people who'd originally called. "You know what this must be?" Tensei had asked his partner.

"Yeah, it's something with your people," Handa had answered back sharply.

"I was going to say organized crime, but possibly there's overlap," Tensei had said back calmly, like he hadn't heard the insult.

"Whatever, there's mutants all over this part of town, and you know how they don't talk to the police." I wonder why.

"As I said. Perhaps there's overlap."

The police station was chaos. Someone was banging away at a keyboard, and Tensei took a closer look.

The screen was locked on the picture of a sweet little girl with visible gills. He took a deep breath, and started to look around. "What are you looking for Iida?" Handa asked, annoyed.

"Seeing if there's one I know," Tensei answered simply.

And sure enough, the one he knew by heart was looking back at him from the chief's computer. Tenko Shimura as a ten-year-old boy stared out at him from the screen, waving shyly in a soccer uniform. Tensei took a seat – he wouldn't have presumed to do so without asking if the chief had already made his way here. He tried typing Shimura's name and birthday, but that didn't work.

His heart hammered as he tried the date that he'd been taken on his way home from school.

The lock screen gave way to the normal screen. "What was the password?" Handa asked.

"His name and the day he went missing," Tensei said, managing not to choke up, even though by now he was remembering, in uncomfortable detail, the night that he'd been an officer in training that rode along with his father who got the call about a missing child. He could still see the relief on Tenko's mother's face when she saw his father's and his own exhaust pipes, knowing she was in metahuman hands. "Don't worry ma'am, we'll do everything we can to find your son," Dad had said cheerfully, and given her his personal number after she tearfully gave him this very photograph, of her boy playing soccer just days before.

"Ah. Of course you'd know that. How are we supposed to unlock the other computers?" Handa said scornfully.

"I imagine it's the same thing, we'll need to match up the photographs to the names and dates. I'll open the ones I know to make it easier." He still remembered how crushed his dad had been when Tenko's mother called him furiously, four days later. He could hear her voice through the phone against Dad's ear, it was so shrill and loud. "You bastard! He was dumped at a hospital in the middle of the night! His power's gone, you know as good as I do what else they did to him. What good are you?!"

"What do we do if they were never reported missing? Some mutant parents don't bother reporting!" Handa asked, his tone caustic. Tensei gritted his teeth. I wonder why they don't, he thought bitterly.

"We'll have to canvas the neighborhood and figure it out. Until then, the computers will be unusable," he said evenly.

"How do they expect us to investigate if they cut our resources?"

"We'll have to make do."

Dad couldn't save you, Shimura, he thought as he searched for another face he knew. But I can give you justice.

Next Up: The Truth

Aizawa has to convince Chisaki that Deku really did fall out of a parallel universe, and a vigilante reaches out to Shimura.

All names given in Western order with spelling derived from tvtropes for consistency.

I've posted the first two chapters here to give everyone a taste of what the story's going to be like. From now on I'll be posting every Saturday and Wednesday until the story is done. The story is 95% finished and backed up on multiple media, so barring something catastrophic there shouldn't be any schedule slip. If there will be, I'll try to post about it either here or on my Twitter (handle MadScientistSidekick MadSidekick when you find the girl with brown hair in the blue shirt you've found me).

Cross-posted to Archive of Our Own.