Chapter 12

The Plan

Every person in the room stared at him. Deku felt horrible, like he'd just betrayed All Might in the worst way, but they had to understand. And they couldn't tell anyone at home – so the secret was still safe in the world where it would do harm to get out. He launched into an explanation, explaining about One For All and what he knew of its history.

Most of the people present continued staring blankly, but Mr. Aizawa put his hands to his temples. "That's the divergence point. One For All doesn't exist in this timeline. Or didn't, until you showed up."

"Yes!" Deku scanned through the letter, and finding the sentence that explained, he read out loud. " 'We believe that a branching timeline was created by the use of a powerful time manipulation quirk to change something in the past. Whoever did this was probably unaware they had created a parallel timeline.' That person must have … they must have done something to Yoichi, and since they got what they wanted and their master won, they never tried to …" Deku felt a slow dawning horror as he realized. Tensei Iida had a copy of the letter, Shimura said the police had leaked the info to All For One. Whoever had done this could try again, creating parallel worlds over and over and over again, no matter how many times the good guys won.

"I don't think it's a matter of them not trying again. I doubt anyone could survive killing the brother of such a man, and if they did, they'd have no way to know they'd created a parallel reality rather than changing it. Even if they somehow had that information, they likely wouldn't be satisfied with the knowledge of creating parallel worlds where their Master won, if he still lost in the reality they just left," Mr. Aizawa said, and Deku instantly felt better. But Mr. Aizawa still looked extremely grave. "I'm more worried about what All For One himself will do with this knowledge. I doubt he'll be happy to rule one reality, and he already has one henchman that could potentially replicate Gianakos' feat, if Kurogiri exists here." Deku's heart went cold, and he sank into the couch by Leto's feet. I wish you hadn't written this letter, Leto, he thought. But how could she have known?

Shimura sat down heavily on the nearest chair, face in hands. "Those idiots have doomed us all," he muttered, barely audible, and then started to laugh bitterly. Eri looked up at her uncle in concern.

"Eri, go in your room, turn on your TV," Chisaki told his niece softly. She didn't know what they were talking about, but she was starting to look frightened.

"But Uncle Kai …"

"No buts, go in your room and turn the TV on." She nodded, and did as she was told. They waited in painful silence until they heard the distant sound of the television playing something happy and bright.

One of Chisaki's bodyguards, Ms. Namura's brother, shrugged. "What are we so worried about? We don't know his guy can do what the girl does. And if he can? He got his ass handed to him in the other reality once already, I say let him try, let someone else worry about him for once," he said carelessly.

"He didn't, weren't you paying attention? Midoriya's sensei had to give up the last of his power to take him down," Shimura snapped. "What if they team up? What if he didn't kill the time traveler, and he sends him back over and over just to create an army of himself?"

"They'll probably kill each other out of spite," Chisaki noted, but sounded notably less optimistic than his bodyguard.

Shimura laughed bitterly again. Deku hated that, so very, very much. It reminded him too much of Shigaraki. "So, the best-case scenario for the multiverse is being ruled by the strongest One For All that won the battle royale with God only knows how many casualties. That's great. I feel better already."

"No. I'm going to stop him before he gets the chance to do any of that," Deku said clenching his fists and standing from the couch.

"Not that I don't have faith in you, Midoriya, but you have a few more decades of training before you can do what your sensei did, and we don't have that time," Shimura said, and it stung. Tears stung Deku's eyes, but he remained determined.

"I'll do it, Shimura. I'll end his reign of darkness, even if I have to lay down my life. Just … make sure Leto gets home, so she can tell my mom, all right?"

"You won't be alone. I'll be damned before I let someone die for my world without doing everything I can," Officer Iida said, standing from the floor where he'd been kneeling and pulling Deku into a hug. Was this the closest Deku would ever be to seeing his friend again, being bear hugged by the parallel counterpart of his older brother? The tears started to fall.

"That's what we have to do. There's … you're the mutant advocate, what are our numbers?" Chisaki asked Shimura.

"Officially, forty percent of the population. Unofficially, we think it's closer to sixty. Metahumans are the majority, but the government won't acknowledge it," Shimura said. Deku tried not to get heartsick thinking about how many people had been killed or never been born to bring the numbers that far down, he had to think about the immediate threat. "How many of them have something that would be useful in an offensive capacity? I don't know. I'd guess at least half of the meta population, if they got creative."

"Then we overwhelm him and his cronies, like ants taking down a grasshopper," Chisaki said.

Shimura started to rub at his neck furiously. "Grasshoppers don't eat the ants, to my knowledge. The casualties from what you're suggesting, even assuming success, would be unimaginable."

"You're the one that's so sure we're doomed if we don't stop him now, why not let the ants decide?" Deku agreed with both of them. He wished he was strong enough to do this on his own, so they didn't have to argue like this …

"None of you are being rational," Mr. Aizawa snapped. "Our options aren't between submission and martyrdom. We have assets we can use, we need a plan. So, let's start with the basics: How can we force a confrontation with a man so deeply underground none of us knew for sure he existed until a teenager from another universe confirmed it?"

"I … I can help with that," Shimura said, unexpectedly, and took out his phone while everyone gaped at him. "One second." He dialed, they all waited. "Hi. I'm putting you on speaker. I'm with …" he glanced at Iida. "A group of people that might be able to help." If Officer Iida didn't know he was in a Yakuza house by this point, he was not a very good police officer. "Your woman on the inside, can she tell us where he's moving? She got the police leak about Gianakos to us quickly."

"… Who are you with?" Hawks' voice crackled over the speaker.

"We don't have the luxury of being picky."

"I'm not potentially outing my girl to a bunch of randos. Who are you with?"

"Just tell us if she can or not."

"Yes. She can."

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but we should move Gianakos, and ourselves for that matter, to a more secure location, shouldn't we?" Ms. Namura spoke up.

"We'll resume this conversation at headquarters. Give your friend whatever assurances he needs," Chisaki said definitively, and no one questioned it. Whatever plan they were going to put in place, they'd debate it there.

Another terrible realization hit Deku hard, making him feel like he'd be sick. "Oh no! What about my family?"

Izuku hurried home from school, totally spooked by his mom's text. He hadn't done anything she could be mad about, was something wrong? Was it Tamako? Was it Dad? Oh no, were Mom and Dad splitting up?

He had convinced himself of the worst by the time he got home. "Mom, what's going on?" he asked timidly.

"Izuku! Do you know anything about this?" Mom demanded, and shoved a letter and a picture of a strange European woman into his face.

"Mom, who is this?"

"I don't know! The police showed up at the door asking about her. Read the letter."
Izuku had already scanned through a few sentences. "Mom, this sounds like a crazy person, why are you so upset?"

"Izuku … were you … talking to this woman on the Internet or something? I know you used to love superhero comics, and you've been reading that new one, were you maybe … I don't know, playing some kind of game online that maybe this girl took too seriously?"

"Mom, I haven't been into that sort of thing since I was a kid," he protested indignantly. "I definitely wouldn't have been doing role playing like that. I genuinely don't know who this person is."

"Izuku are you … do you have a …" she was choked up and almost in tears.

"No! Mom, why would you think that just because some crazy person thinks I do? I don't even know how she knows who I am!"

"You can tell me if you do I need to know but I just … after little Katsuki …" Tears were coming from Izuku's eyes now too. He cried every time he thought about his friend.

"Mom, I don't have any powers. Not even a little one like you and Dad. I'm safe," he reassured, and pulled her into a hug.

The front door opened. "Hey Mom, hey Izuku … oh no, is everything okay? Is someone dead? Is it Grandma?!" Tamako asked, dropping her bookbag to the floor in shock.

"Everything's okay honey, I just … I just got spooked because …" Mom broke down into tears again.

"Some weirdo gave the police this, I don't know why," Izuku said with a sigh, handing his sister the letter and the photo.

"Maybe someone used your picture to catfish her. I don't know why, I guess they didn't want to use someone too cute, or it would look too good to be true."

"Tamako!" Mom scolded.

"What? Izuku's kind of cute, but he's not super cute."

"Thanks sis," Izuku said sarcastically. "But … she's not wrong. That might be why. But why'd they use my name? Did the police say anything else?" He had been getting friend requests from people he had never seen before in his life – maybe someone really was using his name and picture for some reason.

"No, they just wanted me to ask you about it, since you don't know anything about her, I guess we should just … try to move on," Mom said, wiping her tears with a tissue.

That little nightmare over with, they got on with the night. Mom started to fix dinner, Tamako and Izuku started their homework. But before any of them got very far, there was a knock on the door. Tamako ran to the door and stood on her tiptoes to see through the peephole. "Mom! It's two guys who look like they might be detectives."

"Open the door honey, maybe they know something about earlier!"

Tamako opened the door to two men in suits with badges around their necks. "Is this the Midoriya residence?" one of the men asked.

"Yes, it is," Mom said, hurrying to the door, still in her apron. "Do you have any news from the young lady found last night?"

"Ma'am, about that … we're sorry to catch you as you're fixing dinner, but we're going to need you to come with us."

"Why? What's happening?"

"We think the young lady may have been running from some very dangerous people, we don't know how your son's connected but we just want to make sure everyone's safe. Can you and your children be ready in about thirty minutes? Pack light for a couple of nights, one or two changes of clothes, the kids' school things, and some toiletries. We'll take the kids to and from school tomorrow if the coast isn't clear."

"Yes, yes we can, Izuku, Tamako, you heard him, go get your things," Mom said, clearly trying to be brave even though she was shaking.

"Mom, wait. Can I see your badges?" Izuku protested. He had a bad feeling about all of this.

The older of the officers chuckled. "Good instincts, young man. Here you go." He handed him his badge, and then the younger man did. They looked legitimate, but Izuku still felt uneasy, so he put the numbers and the local PD into a search engine. An app came up that allowed the user to verify badge numbers, he clicked it and input one badge, and then the other. They were both legit. He relaxed a little, and went to do as asked.

The Yakuza doctor was an older man, with mostly gray hair and deep lines in his face. He spoke gruffly with everyone, but his hands were gentle as he settled Leto into bed and put an IV in her arm. "We'll get some fluids and glucose in her, I'll check on her every hour or so," he told Deku in the same gruff voice he'd been using. "Her vitals are good, she just needs some rest."

"When do you think she'll wake up?"

"I can't say for sure. I'd guess she'll be like this for at least a few hours, she'll probably be all right by morning."

Deku kneeled beside her on the bed. "Thank you for coming for me, Leto, even though it hurt you to do so," he said gently.

Her face turned slightly towards him, and she opened her eyes only slightly. "I … Izuku?" she asked softly.

"Leto!"

"Izuku! Sweet Izuku!" she said, and smiled slightly even as tears streamed down her face, and then she closed her eyes again. Deku cried a little, just glad to hear her voice. Hopefully she would rest easier now, knowing he was safe, that she'd succeeded. The door opened, and someone entered.

"Midoriya, we're downstairs in …" Chisaki paused. "What's going on?" Deku tried to stifle his tears, but it didn't quite work.

"This boy has a lot of … feelings, about this girl," the doctor said with distaste.

"He's loyal. Nothing wrong with that." Being defended by Chisaki, of all people, gave Deku such mixed feelings that it effectively stoppered his tears. "You coming or not?" he asked, more roughly, and Deku stood to follow.

They got through the maze of hallways to the non-descript meeting room where the others were already waiting. Chisaki checked his phone. "That's confirmation your family's safe, my men just picked them up," he said as he opened the door.

"Thank goodness," Deku said, with a sigh of relief.

"Do I want to know why your organization had two real, active police badges lying around?" Officer Iida asked Chisaki.

"No," he answered flatly.

"You won't have your guys bring them here, will you?" Deku asked, half dreading, half hoping for an affirmative answer. He wanted to actually speak to Tamako and to himself, but he thought the shock might kill Mom, and he didn't want them mixed up with Chisaki anymore than absolutely necessary.

"No, they'll take them to a hotel and keep watch. I probably shouldn't have brought any of you here. But Aizawa made a good case for this being the end of the world if we don't get out ahead of it." All of the non-Yakuza had been blindfolded before being brought here – Deku had decided to keep it to himself he already knew the way, and had been in this building before.

While they'd been talking, Shimura had been speaking to Hawks in a low voice, getting him up to speed.

"So who am I with? I'm with the kid with the power in question, a schoolteacher, a former police officer," Former? Oh, oh no. Iida was definitely fired for helping them. That wasn't fair, but it was inevitable. "And the head of a chivalrous organization that's sympathetic. Yes really. I'll put you on speakerphone."

Hawks voice crackled over the speaker. "Gonna be honest, more worried about the cop than the Yakuza." Shimura rubbed his temples at the bluntness but said nothing. Iida and Chisaki also said nothing. It was a very loud nothing from all parties.

"Yes, necessity makes strange bedfellows, let's move on," Mr. Aizawa said brusquely. "We have someone that can report on his movements to us, correct?"

"She can tell us, I don't think she could convince him to do anything, at least not without immediately raising suspicions," Hawks clarified. "So we're either at the mercy of his existing schedule, or we'll need something else. For what it's worth, I've been trying to figure out when this guy is most vulnerable for two months, and I don't have a clue yet."

"Maybe we should put a pin in that," Iida said.

"No. Our plan for contacting him will affect our entire strategy, because it'll affect location and availability of assets," Aizawa said.

"I know one of his underlings," Chisaki said, not looking anyone in the eye. Deku looked at him in shock. "The shadow lord uses him to contact me, and collect his cut." There was a deep shame in the admission, though Chisaki kept his head held high. But he didn't meet anyone's gaze.
"That's just one of his underlings though, how are you going to get to him?" Hawks said.

"Through me," Shimura said, sitting up straight with realization.

"What are you talking about?" the voice on the phone demanded.

"The kids. They've had Bakugo and Toga for long enough they clearly don't intend to return them. And with what's happened the last few times they've grabbed a kid … I can use that. Chisaki, tell your guy I want to meet about the kids, but I'll only negotiate if I can talk to the man himself."

"You're going to have to offer something really good to make a demand like that," Chisaki said dryly.

"I will. I'll offer him names of people with quirks he'll want. Or pretend I'm going to. A trade for the kids." There was so much distaste on his face just at the thought, but it was all he had to offer that All For One would find worthwhile.

"That's good, Shimura, that's really good," Hawks said.

"All right, that's a start. We'll need contingencies if he doesn't take the bait, but we'll start there," Mr. Aizawa noted.

They had to take Kurogiri out of play, quickly. If, by some miracle, this headed in a direction other than their team being soundly beaten, he'd just warp his master to safety and they'd lose the advantage of the ambush. "Take Shinso with you," Hawks said. Deku's spine prickled at the name – his Shinso? "He was friends with Toga – the missing girl. You can take him under the pretense of being able to identify her voice. His power is …"
"Brainwashing! If he can get someone to answer a question, he can tell them to do whatever he wants," Deku finished.

"That is very creepy when you do that, kid," Hawks said.

"And he's a child and it's a power that I absolutely do not want All For One to have if we fail, so absolutely not," Shimura protested.

"If we fail everyone's fucked anyway," Chisaki noted.

"We don't have to make it easier for All For One to fuck us," Shimura shot back.

"Midoriya, you seem to know more about this young man's ability, please enlighten us about its limitations," Mr. Aizawa said, ignoring the snarky exchange.

"It's really good! As long as he can get someone to answer, he can take control. You can break out of it though, especially if you get some kind of shock, like a bad injury."

"So, it'd only fool someone once, and if we did use him to take out Kurogiri, we'd have to hope it lasted throughout the fight, and we couldn't count on taking anyone else down. I'm not in favor of it either," Mr. Aizawa said.

"If this power's so mind-blowing, why not use it to get All For One to off himself? Or fight the others?" Chiaki asked.

"Because even assuming the pain of whatever suicide method was chosen wasn't enough to break the quirk's influence, Kurogiri would just teleport him away and stop him by force, eventually breaking the brainwash one way or another. Same applies if the order was to attack the others. Warp Gate has to be neutralized immediately," Mr. Aizawa said, with the same tone as Deku's Mr. Aizawa when he had to explain something more than once because someone wasn't paying attention in class.

"Then I still think we should use him the way he said," Chisaki said, motioning towards the phone. "He can't be any younger than Midoriya."

"Midoriya's been training for this for almost a year and has a quirk nine generations in the making. Arguably he's better prepared than any of us." Deku didn't know how to feel about that. "And Shimura's right, we shouldn't set up a fail state that makes it worse than if we did nothing. We'll come back to it later."

The players in the ambush were discussed at length. Deku, obviously, Mr. Aizawa, Chisaki, Hawks, Mr. Todoroki. (Even as dire as the circumstances were, Deku squeed a little bit inside, at the thought of getting to take part in a joint operation with the Number One and Number Two heroes from his reality.) They didn't know if Mr. Aizawa's Erase was going to stop all his quirks, or just stop him from taking new ones, if the former, it was going to be a God send, and either way they had to do everything they could to keep All For One in his line of sight at all times. The goal was to take down All For One quickly enough the bad guys didn't have time to call for back-up, but there was no guarantee. So the contingency plan, unfortunately, was basically the meat grinder Shimura had wanted to avoid. To have as many people as possible, coordinated by Iida and reinforced by Chisaki's men, patrolling the streets without attracting attention, so they could stop whatever back-up arrived from congregating. "I still don't like this. Civilians who've barely been allowed to train against thugs with multiple quirks and years of training, it's going to be a bloodbath," he said, face in hands. "Don't give me your grasshopper simile again, these ants are people. Our people."

"It's only a contingency," Mr. Aizawa said gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. But a contingency that seemed upsettingly likely – and that wouldn't help them if they were all defeated by One For All or if Kurogiri effected a retreat.

"We should use Eri."

Everyone was silent, staring at Chisaki. Deku felt sick. "We should. Every plan we have hinges on the assumption we can overwhelm two centuries' worth of stolen quirks quickly enough to kill or subdue him and however many flunkies he decides to bring, including one that could get them out of there if we lose track of him for even a second, in a short enough time that none of them have time to call for help. I don't like our odds. Eri can turn the clock back, if we keep him talking long enough with whatever ruse we're using to lure him out, we could at least even out the odds by taking him back to a time before he had every quirk he's ever felt like taking."

Everyone continued staring.

"Hell yeah! Why wasn't this our first option?" Hawks asked on the phone.

"Your niece? That Eri? What is she, eight?" Shimura demanded. He was on his feet, his fists clenched.

"Seven."

No one in the room spoke. "Oh," Hawks said softly. "Wait … there's a kid I know – a teenager, not a little kid – that has a power where he copies …"

"Monoma?" Deku asked.

"Yes. That's still creepy."

"Hers is a blank, he can't copy it. He's tried. Or, in my timeline he has, I'm sure it's not different here. Even if he could, it'd only last for five minutes." Everyone fell quiet again.

"She can do it, I know she can, this is her destiny, it's why she was born with it …" Chisaki's eyes had that wild look Deku had seen when they cornered him in his timeline, and he felt sick. He'd thought Eri was safe here, safe with this version of him.

"We're talking about reversing over two hundred years, she's never done any reversal nearly that long. And how would we explain her presence?" Mr. Aizawa snapped.

"We don't. She has range right, you figured that out didn't you?" Chisaki asked. "We were trying to figure out where to take him, Iida suggested a tearoom of a place that's on the tenth floor of the hotel it's in. We put Eri on the ninth floor. Or if it's somewhere on the street level we put her next door. And we keep him talking as long as we can. As soon as the fighting starts, or she can't do it anymore, whoever's with her gets her out."

"Everyone who's been affected by her power screams in pain, he'll notice something's happening," Mr. Aizawa said scornfully.

"Not everyone. Not since you started helping her. And not her father. According to Sayuri he never made a sound. Poor bastard probably didn't know anything was happening until he started getting shorter."

Deku shivered – he didn't like to think about the horrible thing that happened to poor Eri before she even ended up with her uncle. And Chisaki spoke about it so flippantly.

"I'm still not liking hinging everything on a second grader," Hawks said, which was probably the mildest way to phrase everyone's objections.

"Don't let your need for revenge cloud your judgment," Mr. Aizawa said, some softness entering his tone.

"I'm not! You're all so sure this is something apocalyptic, but as soon as anyone talks about sacrifice you hem and haw. The people that are going to come patrol, we're not forcing them, correct? The boy whose friend is missing, how do we know he wouldn't risk everything to save her? We're not forcing him, right? It's not just my revenge, the shadow lord killed Eri's Grandfather. He's her boogeyman, the reason she's lived in fear all her life."

"I'm sure she'd want vengeance. But she's seven," Shimura snapped.

"What's your plan if she can't disengage her quirk?" Mr. Aizawa asked. He wasn't considering this, was he?!

"You've always been able to stop her …"

Mr. Aizawa's eyes flashed. "I won't be in the room with her. What's your plan?"

"The boy – Shinso. He could order her to stop, right?"

Deku thought of the last time they'd fought, when Black Whip had gone out of control. "Yes, he could," he confirmed.

"So let him go with her, if he's willing. He gets to help us save or avenge his friend, but he never comes in contact with All For One so there's no chance he exposes his quirk."

"Let's come back to it," Iida said, when everyone was silent.

Hours ticked by, others were added to the plan. Hawks suggested Mina Ashido be in the room to identify Toga's voice, if that's the ruse they went with. (Deku was overjoyed to learn she did exist in this world, after all.) Chisaki's man Tengai would provide a shield to give those that were part of the ruse cover during the volatile moment the ruse fell through. Mr. Aizawa suggested his friend might be able to help take down Kurogiri quickly. "Your friend, sir?"

"She produces a fragrance that puts people to sleep, I …"

"Oh! Midnight! I know her. I don't know enough about Kurogiri's physiology to know if it will work, but it's worth a shot."

Mr. Aizawa stared at him, a somewhat concerned expression on his face, for a moment. "… I forgot she's a teacher in your reality."

"What is she here?"

"Let's move on. Since we'll have a large group of people in multiple rooms, we'll need a way to coordinate our actions," Aizawa said.

"Shino Sosaki. Take us away, Midoriya, you probably know," Shimura said. His tone was edged with anxiety, and Deku felt bad for making the others uncomfortable with what he knew.

"Her quirk is Telepath, she can send messages to several people at once. She can't hear back, though, so she'd have to be in a central position to get the most useful information. How do you know her, Shimura?"

"She used to run a summer camp where we'd send the kids in our emergency housing during school vacation, to get away from the city for a while. Someone leaked the location and it's not safe anymore. She does what she can," Shimura answered. There was a story there, judging by the sorrow in his voice, but they didn't have time for stories. But Deku imagined the worst version of that story, and he used that to remind him why he had to do this, why he couldn't fail.

Deku suggested others to add to the offensive team. Some of them, no one knew, and therefore had no guarantee they could contact them or what their character was in this reality, some, sadly, Shimura confirmed had been victims of All For One's "snatchers," and a few were added. None seemed likely to tip the balance, Deku knew it was up to him.

"We have to use the girl," Shimura said quietly. All of the color had drained out of his face, and he looked nauseated to say it.

"What? No! We can't!" Deku protested. They'd convinced him he needed help. Maybe he needed more help than he was going to get, that was fine, he'd push further and do what was needed. But not Eri. He didn't need her to be in danger.

"Midoriya, it's the only way. I hate to say it, but Chisaki's right, especially if the worst case is true with Aizawa's quirk." Chisaki looked so smug, Deku wanted to hit him again. "We can't overwhelm him, no matter who we put in that room. Maybe even if we did what was initially suggested – that damn grasshopper and ant analogy – we'd still lose. Whatever quirk we have, he has something to counter it. The only chance we have is if we take some of them out of the equation."

"But there's no way. Like Mr. Aizawa said, she can't turn back that much time, she'll hurt herself," he thought of Leto lying in the other room with an IV in her arm, of Eri lying in the hospital bed burning up with a fever in quarantine after the fight with his universe's Chisaki. He felt sick to his stomach with guilt over the latter – the little girl had had to use her powers to help him once, he wasn't going to make her do that again.

"No, she can't. But how many quirks does he steal every year, Shimura?" Mr. Aizawa asked. No, he loved Eri, he couldn't be considering this …
"Average is about a hundred, some years it's more, some years it's less." Shimura's hands were folded in his lap. He looked so defeated. This was Deku's fault, he wasn't good enough …

"Most of them probably go to this henchmen though," Deku protested, though the sickening number brought tears to his eyes, thinking of all the children they'd come from …

Mr. Aizawa looked very grave. "Even so. Eri's Rewind would make a dent if she can go back even forty years, which seems reasonable based on what she's shown. It wouldn't be much, but it would be something. But I'm not confident the effect isn't noticeable, we'd have to test it. I don't know where we'd find a volunteer for such a thing."

Shimura put a hand to a spot just under his chin. "I cut myself shaving yesterday morning." Have her try it on me, see if she can turn me back far enough to heal that without noticing. I'm easily the most expendable to this plan, if the worst happens have Todoroki be the one to make the contact."

"How good is her aim on her power? Can she sense people?" Hawks asked.

"No. My man Namura will stay with her. He has a remote viewing power, we've never known how to put it to use until now," Chisaki answered. He'd been almost entirely silent until Shimura said they needed to use Eri, probably thinking over every question they could ask.

"We'll have to test that as well, we know she has range but she's never worked on something she couldn't see."

"No! We're not testing anything! We're not using Eri!" Deku said flatly, standing with his fists clenched. "Shimura vetoed using Shinso, I'm vetoing Eri."

"I'm with Midoriya, we can't use a little girl to fight our fight," Officer Iida said.

Chisaki was on his feet now. "How many times are we going to go over this? Is this the end of the world, or isn't it? She'll be safe, she won't even be in the room, she'll be watched by my man who knows what I'll do if any harm comes to her and this Shinso kid, who's apparently so powerful we can't let the shadow lord even see him. She's my little girl, I don't know why everyone else is more squeamish than me about it."

"Because you're a cold-hearted monster that doesn't mind using your little girl for revenge?" Iida asked, saying the thing Deku had bitten his tongue on.

Aizawa moved as fast as Chisaki, getting between him and Iida, his eyes locked on Chisaki, Erase in use. He reached behind him to shove Iida back, hard, keeping them further apart. "Remember who your enemy is, both of you. This is an apocalyptic situation, we'll use what we have. Even if it's distasteful."

"Distasteful?! She almost died when she used her power to help me fight …" Mr. Aizawa took his eyes off Chisaki for the first time since Iida spoke, catching Deku's eye just as Deku caught himself. "The villain who had her in my world."

"You used her to help you in that world, and you're crying about doing it here?" Chisaki asked, scorn dripping from his voice.

"Yes, because when I did it there it was to save her life, and it put her in the hospital! She passed out and she was burning up …"

"We'll stop it before it hits that point," Mr. Aizawa said quickly.

"Who the hell was this guy, that he was bad enough you had to fight him like that, huh?" Deku knew he couldn't tell him, and knew why, but badly wanted to, for the first time. Maybe if he knew what a monster he was under different circumstances, he'd reflect on himself.

"The lieutenant of a rival boss. I told the boy not to tell you the details so you wouldn't be tempted to take vengeance for something done in another universe," Mr. Aizawa said coolly. A rational deception, to use his favorite phrase, and Deku latched onto it.

"Yes, sir, that's what it was. I was part of a recovery action with the agency where I did my work study, but I ended up isolated with him and Eri, so it was up to me."

"That wasn't your call, Aizawa."

"I didn't want bloodshed, and you seemed disinterested in the details."

"My counterpart must have done a shit job protecting her, if it was up to you to get her back," Chisaki said directly to Deku. His tone was still aggressive, like he doubted the story just out of shame. Deku had never bitten his tongue on anything so hard in his life as he did on "You were the one who put her in danger, you were torturing her to exploit her quirk to build a racket."

"Do we have to discuss this right now, at this moment?" Shimura asked brusquely, and Deku knew he'd be eternally grateful.

"We'll discuss it later," Mr. Aizawa said, and Chisaki let the point lie.

But Deku hadn't given up. "I can do this, I have to do this, I don't need Eri …"

"Izuku." Shimura hadn't called him by his given name before. Deku turned to listen, the tension gone from his stance. "If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be discussing how to take him down, what needs to be taken out of play or who should hit and who should support. We'd just … accept that he's here to stay. We've all lived on our knees, every one of us." Not you, you never have, Deku thought. You're braver than anyone here, especially me. "But you brought us hope, and that's a dangerous thing. You brought us glimpses of a better world." He put both hands on his shoulders. "I'm sorry for what I said at the house, it was blunt. You can't do what All Might did, not alone. I don't know him, I only know what you've told us. But I know you, I've seen your light, I've seen your heart. I've seen what he can do, through the stories you brought. Everything we've discussed here is just to even the playing field, to try to boost you past the decades more of experience your sensei has. You understand? If I didn't think we could close that gap, I'd be on the phone with the police emphatically telling them to consider Leto's 'mental illness' before causing an international incident and praying All For One bought that explanation and dropped his interest. But we can, and you can. The fact we have to use Eri isn't a reflection on you, it's a reflection on us, that we weren't ready to fight for our lives until a teenager showed us it was possible." Tears flowed freely down Deku's cheeks.

"He's right, Midoriya. We can do this, but we have to use every advantage we have," Mr. Aizawa said, his tone softer than Deku had heard except on a handful of occasions.

Deku almost agreed, almost dropped it. But he couldn't, not yet. "Chisaki! Swear that she won't get hurt. Swear you'll have Mr. Namura get her out as soon as it gets dangerous."

"On my honor."

"Swear on your father's honor," Mr. Aizawa said sharply.

"On my father's honor, she won't be in danger. She'll give us an edge, then he'll get her to safety."

Deku still felt sick, but he nodded. "Okay. Let's do this."

Next up: On the Eve of Armageddon

All the pieces scramble to get into place to take down All For One.

Author's Note Point of clarification: Kurogiri is not going to be there, but of course since Deku went to the other universe a long time before the revelation that he's a nomu made from Shirakumo's remains happened, they have no reason not to believe Kurogiri would be present.