The next day, Izuku wanted to go out hero watching.

"If we can't train in the open, we can at least watch how the pros do it and discuss what we see. It would also be a good idea to know who the local heroes are, just in case they find us while we're illegally performing heroics or stealing things." That was his excuse, but after spending so much time with Izuku, Neito wasn't fooled. Izuku wanted to see quirks. And possibly a few historically famous heroes in action.

Still, that didn't make his points any less valid.

Plus, Neito liked watching quirks, too.

'Still,' Neito thought, 'our change in environment has hardly curbed Izuku's ability to walk them right into messes. But surely their luck could hold out for something so minor, in broad daylight, no less.'

When had he started thinking of the other boy as 'Izuku?'

Thus, they found themselves watching a hero fight with a large crowd. Neito pretended not to notice that even while some people seem to listen with interest, others crept away from them as he and Izuku discussed the hero and villain and how they applied their quirks.

Izuku wore a two sizes too large pine-green hoody that seemed to swallow him. He'd refused to touch dark gray or black ones, saying they reminded him too much of an ambush he'd apparently been caught up early last summer at the mall. Just how many villain encounters did this guy have? It was like he was a villain magnet or something.

It was fun getting to talk to someone who shared his love of quirks, though. That is as long as the other didn't burst from excitement over it, himself. Izuku trembled so much in his excitement, Neito wondered how he managed to write down anything that could be remotely legible.

Then a deep voice spoke, "Ah, doth mine ears deceive me or do I hear fellow quirk enthusiasts?"

"You sure do." Neito turned with a smile, for even in this time, it seemed that their conversation of choice rarely drew others close, even the silently interested ones. He found himself looking up…way up, at a man in a suit with red eyes beneath white curls, about as tall as All Might. "And there's just so many different ones to see."

Neito expected Izuku to give an even brighter greeting.

Thus, Neito was shocked when Izuku turned more toward him, away from the newcomer. His smile suddenly becoming extremely tense…more like a mask than anything. He leaned heavily into Neito, away from the voice, pulling his notebook to his chest, eyes full of terror.

Neito looked up at the man. His friendliness was replaced with mild confusion at Izuku's reaction.

"Sorry about that, my friend has a trouble magnet quirk," Neito stated, the first thing coming to his mind off the internal joke he'd made earlier. "It leaves him a bit jumpy when he meets new people."

"Trouble magnet?" the man asked.

Neito nodded and said, "If we don't take him out to express it, we won't even be able to cross the street without risking getting involved in a mugging or a robbery or something. So, we go out and find heroes in action. This is the third incident today. He loves them," Neito as Midoriya glanced at him fearfully. "Still, if a month passes without him getting jumped by a villain, we consider ourselves lucky."

Izuku glanced over his shoulder, hood half covering his eyes.

The man frowned thoughtfully as he studied the other boy, who must not look like much, considering he'd chosen his baggy, oversized clothes to hide the muscles beneath, giving the illusion of being smaller than he already was. Which was pretty small to begin with.

Recalling Izuku's history, it suddenly occurred to Neito that he might have chosen the look on purpose.

"My apologies. I didn't mean to startle you. I just don't get to meet many people who share my joy for analyzing quirks so openly. It would just be nice to talk about it with people who are clearly well versed in the subject."

Izuku took a deep breath, forced his smile to look more real and said, "I-I-I'm n-n-not th-th-that g-g-good."

Neito studied the man carefully. The fact that Izuku was scared of him immediately had him cautious.

"You sure sounded pretty well versed a moment ago. I know fully trained quirk analysts with years of experience who would be hard pressed to break down this fight the way you just did."

Izuku's face seemed to regain some color, and Neito had a feeling that if it wasn't completely drained a moment ago, it would be beet red right now. "I-I've always loved figuring out quirks."

"There's nothing quite like picking them apart and learning how they work, is there?"

"Maybe realizing that my initial assessments were wrong and realizing they function completely differently," Izuku replied quietly.

The man chuckled. "True. I'm sure it's one of the few good things your quirk does for you. A lot of people with unique quirks…"

"Get pushed into villainy," Izuku finished. "D-d-do you h-have a quirk?"

Neito got the distinct impression that Izuku already knew the answer to his own question.

The man smiled and said, "I can see any screen crystal clear, no matter how poor quality it is. It even works when I have my eyes closed. As long as I have a screen in front of me, I can see anything on it."

Izuku actually perked up at that, not happy but deeply interested. "So, you could essentially have your eyes completely covered but if you had a screen in front of you, then you could see it."

The man nodded.

It was Izuku's turn to frown thoughtfully and Neito suddenly realized how similar his facial features were to those of the man before them. He wondered if Izuku recognized him from some old family photo or something. Come to think of it, they seemed to share a similar body language and had the same intelligent spark in their eyes.

"So, does it just work for video cameras or phones or something specific or does it work for any screens?"

"Any screens. As long as I'm facing them, I can see them, whether my eyes are opened or closed."

Yeah, despite Izuku's continued discomfort, the man clearly had him hooked. Quirks were Izuku Midoriya's kryptonite.

The three of them talked for a while about 'their quirks,' Neito showing off the object shrinking quirk as his, explaining how they kept their weight, though.

Then the man looked at his watch and startled. "Oh, is it that time, already? I'm so sorry but I really must be going. I have a friend I'm meeting up with and he tends to get paranoid if I show up late. It was nice chatting with you boys."

He pulled out a card, wrote something on it and passed it over. Neito frowned at the sight of a tabloid that was still going strong in their time. He'd written a personal email address on it along with the business contacts. "Reach out to me some time. And if you need some help, just call the number or show up at the address and ask for "Hisashi Shigaraki."

Oh. Oh shit. Neito looked at the tall figure with a terrifying suspicion of who this was. Still, he kept his features unreadable.

"Th-th-thank y-y-you." Izuku said, taking the card shyly. Careful, always so careful not to look up or push the hood up over his head.

The man smiled, "Really, feel free to reach out. Talking with you two has been a breath of fresh air."

Once Hisashi Shigaraki had disappeared, Neito turned to Izuku. "Midoriya, who is he?"

"Not here."

Rather than take Neito back to the warehouse, he went to the house with the water and closed the door, before peeking out the boards of a window. Izuku led him in a side entrance before closing the door and glancing through the slats of the front windows.

"Midoriya, what's going on? That man went by Shigaraki and you clearly knew him before he introduced himself."

Izuku looked back at Monoma. All for One didn't know yet. He was sure of it. He wouldn't have let them walk away, otherwise. The villain would not let either an interdimensional castaway or a One for All user escape him so easily.

And Izuku had known tipping his hand in that busy street would have led to tremendous loss of life, so he'd slipped into a role more similar to that which he'd held during his childhood, hoping the villain wouldn't figure it out. It had been disturbingly easy.

For a moment, he had thought that the man had been messing around and was going to turn on them, when he used an alias with the same first name as Izuku's father but he'd seen the card and realized that the man really was using Hisashi as his name. It was both on the card and in the email name.

He really was none the wiser.

Izuku had no doubt that would be a different story the next time they met. And it certainly wouldn't be a meeting Izuku would arrange.

The boy glanced at a trash can, tempted to toss the card but he decided to keep it. It might come in handy.

"Monoma…" No, after they've been through so much, he deserved more than that. "Neito. Remember how I told you that my quirk just activated?" He turned to the other boy, light shining across his face in streaks through the boards. "It didn't just 'activate.'"

Izuku told Neito about One for All.

"The man who created that quirk…who tried to give the first user—his little brother—a stockpiling quirk against his will under the belief that he was quirkless…is All for One. He can take, fuse, use and pass on quirks. The first time I saw him was in Kamino Ward and, although the top half of his face was punched off, I will never forget his voice."

Neito was as white as a sheet.

"That man that just talked quirks with us is him. And the monster in Kamino Ward was crippled." Izuku pointed out the window. "That thing out there; he's whole and healthy. And if I fight him, I'll lose. I can't even access half my power without risking breaking something. And now he's interested in me for my quirk analysis skills. Worse, he knows you' re with me. The reason he didn't ask about where we live is probably because he's confident he can find us." He felt tears rolling down as Neito became a blur. "Next time we cross paths, he won't be asking. Everything he wants, he takes. And you saw him. He liked us. Then if he finds out where we came from and what quirks we have… what I have…I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…" He kept repeating the words as Monoma reached out and pulled him into an embrace.

"We'll figure this out. We always knew that the walls would close in on us. We just have to move faster." He leaned back and Izuku looked up. "But I think you've told me something that we can use to swing this more in our favor."

Izuku looked up and blinked. "What?"

"You have a quirk that can hold eight quirks at once and you just said that the passage of your quirk is determined by the will of the user. Izuku, during the team battle, did you refuse to have your quirk stolen…or did you just will it not to break me?"

It took three seconds for him to understand.

"Izuku, remember what happened when we fell asleep. I think we need to find out how much of your quirk I can copy and learn how to use it. I think if we can find the right quirks, if I can wield quirks at once with One for All…"

"But your limit…"

"You manipulated my quirk. And there's a chance that, since I have an exact copy, minus two hundred years of stockpile, I might be able to reach back. It could be OUR limit…together. A limit that the enhancing nature of One for All may expand who knows how far. We might be able to do this. Especially if we can set up some sort of positive feedback loop between our quirks."

Izuku felt the gears spinning, "Alright." He took a deep breath. "Alright." He nodded. "First, we need to buy time, which means getting out of here. Your body's not ready for One for All, we don't know enough about temporal or dimensional barriers and we have no idea where to find these quirks. We probably need months, at least. If we stay here, we'll have days, at best. Although more likely, it's hours."

"We've saved up on the recyclables cash. I say we pack our bags and catch a cab right now."

"No, we need to hide our traces, first. We're being tracked by a man who gained his power by hunting and catching people. But we should have enough time if we work quick."

The sun had long since set when Izuku had declared he was satisfied that they had covered their traces and they left their home for the last month behind… by busting a hole through the roof and carrying Neito bridal style as he leapt across buildings in single bounds, mumbling about hero tracking quirks that could show footsteps and how spreading them out would make it harder to detect a trail.

That morning, Neito would have refused such behavior, calling the other boy paranoid.

Now, with the revelations Izuku had sprung upon him about his quirk and its connection to the Kamino Ward Villain—the man who'd invited himself to follow them around for an hour—he'd all but jumped into the other boy's arms, wishing to have already been gone hours ago.

As they entered a nicer part of town, they started looking for their first taxi. Tonight, they would just find another place but not to sleep; no, Neito was hair dyeing and getting familiar with the curling iron while Izuku got comfortable putting lenses into and pulling them out of his eyes. Green was too distinct.

The next day, they braved the rail system, hopefully looking too different from the boys who appeared out of thin air all those weeks ago to set off any alarms.

Izuku had also informed him that they were going to Musutafu. This was about to become a matter of One for All and All for One. That meant that it was time to seek the help of those who knew…

Neito was afraid that, as rough as things had seemed before, they were about to get a lot worse.

When Gigantomachia slammed the warehouse doors open, his senses were immediately bombarded. He looked around and what he saw boggled him. They'd definitely been here but…

"Machia, what's wrong?" All for One asked. Then he sniffed the air and looked into the building, using a glowing quirk of some kind to light the space. His face took on a look of mild surprise. "Oh."

There were shades of every color under the sun scattered all over the place. Hair. The trash bags they were pulled out from were left scattered about the place, too, adding their own aroma to the scent of what was probably the cuttings of several hundred people.

There were shattered bottles of perfume and undoubtedly empty cans of hairspray about the place, too. The kids hadn't just chucked them, though. Gigantomachia was sure that even his Master could smell it. For him though, it was taking all of his will power not to run back down the street the way he came just to escape the smell.

"And there's their exit hole," Master stated as he pointed at a hole in the ceiling from which light filtered down. "Guess they got hold of some strength enhancement quirk. quirk."

Giagantomachia didn't need to see the smile on Master's face to sense his excitement.

"I'll give our misplaced hero spawn this, they're clever little runts." He chuckled. "They might be worth keeping. Such high-quality young children I'm meeting around here!"

All For One looked around the building for any clues that the boys might have failed to hide. He noted that some of the materials that had been dragged in were large or heavy, meaning that at least one of them had a quirk that allowed them to move heavy objects around. He frowned, hoping it wasn't just some super strength quirk. He could stockpile those easily enough that, no matter how powerful, they weren't of any great value to him. That was, with the exception of one particular stockpiling quirk that had been carried off to America only a couple months ago.

He decided he'd best get back to Gigantomachia.

He activated a couple of quirks he loved dearly. The first was a fire breathing quirk which he used to make a cloud of smoke. Once it was sufficiently large enough, he activated the second; a warp quirk which could only be used through fogs and hazes but could take the user anywhere, as long as they knew exactly where that location was.

He stepped through and joined Machia where he was waiting on the street just outside the building. Clouds of smoke roiling out through the portal behind him. "We'll have to wait for them to take up their vigilante activities again. It won't take long…they're hero students, after all."