Miqila - So will Rabbit's eventual child. It's going to be a very big family, ngl :v

Shahryar - Yeah, he needed that.

Jpx0999 - To be honest, you tend to have a lot of people with the same surname in a country.

(***)

Izuku ended up returning downstairs after (unofficially) adopting Asa as his younger brother just to see an unexpected guest.

Paladin was in the common room, sipping off what looked like coffee while sitting in the corner of the room. Generally ignoring the few people that for some reason were lounging around the area.

"And why are you here?" Izuku decides to ask. Paladin gives him a questioning look. "I somehow don't remember inviting you here."

"I might be slightly underslept nowadays but I don't think I'm quite as pale as for you to mistake me for a vampire." Paladin retorts, while putting his coffee down. "I can enter places uninvited. I called the Principal and he had Eclipse warp me here from Nabu Mountains."

"Why?" Midoriya's eyes narrow. "Was it about me?"

"Mostly, yeah." Paladin nods. "I saw you leave the hospital in a hurry, and you didn't look very well. Then I heard what happened to your mother, my most sincere condolences by the way, and I figured out that you might…"

"Break?" Izuku cuts in while deciding to sit on the chair beside him. His girlfriends all ran away somewhere and with Aizawa still in the meeting with Yagi, it was too early to try to figure out the official aftermath of the Gunga Mountain. "I totally did. I just managed to somehow patch myself up, with help from someone very important to me."

"Ah yes, the unmeasurable value of our friends and loved ones while in a pinch." Paladin nods thoughtfully. "Sounds like it was mostly the latter category, wasn't it?"

…

"Please don't try to preach to me about the natural superiority of monogamy over polygamy." Izuku decides to tackle the bear up front. "First, I'm really not in a mood. Second, I have no idea how that happened to begin with as I never saw the slightest inkling of inclinations in myself towards that, and I don't think it was different with them."

"Should I be insulted with the suggestion that your opinion on me is so low that you've genuinely suspected me of wanting to preach to you a day after a personal tragedy?" Paladin asks back. Okay, that one's on Izuku. "Besides, you do you. You're all clearly treating it as a lifelong commitment and love each other, so I'm really not going to butt into that."

Paladin is surprisingly wholesome at times for a religious radical, and that's something Izuku noticed despite the two not spending a lot of time together. Then again, feeling moral zeal makes him superhumanly strong, so he probably had to exercise restraint to not accidentally break a chair or a table or someone's hand because of seeing someone loiter in front of him.

Or, God forbid, engage in premarital handholding.

"On a sidenote, congratulations on becoming a vanguard among the second generation quirk holders." Paladin then deadpans. When Izuku gives him a questioning look, he decides to elaborate. "I mean, how many pregnant second gens do you know of?"

Izuku groans.

"How the hell do you even know that?" He asks.

"Hatsume made it clear that she's your girlfriend while hanging around the command center before the raid." Paladin replies. "And my brother is really observant."

"Did he ever hear of the word 'privacy'?" Izuku asks flatly.

"What's that, some dish name in Swahili?" Paladin asks back. Izuku stares daggers at him. "Look, it's a work in progress with him, alright? Really didn't have any good parental figures to emulate while a child. I'm really doing my best with him."

Wait. Paladin was something of an expert when villainous parents were involved, right? And right now…

"Speaking of, what about Purity?" Izuku asks.

"What about her?" Paladin asks. He's either very good at pretending or he really didn't have any strong opinions on the subject, to Izuku's complete disbelief.

"We arrested her." Izuku reminds him. "Did you try to talk with her already, or…"

"No, and I don't plan to." Paladin states flatly. Izuku blinks at him. "I was angry back there because she was out there, hurting people. Now that she's incarcerated, I'm completely disinterested in her continued existence. There is no way that I can convince her to stop being a monster, either way. And what else would the meeting do? Give me an occasion to gloat? That's just being petty and childish."

"So you're just going to… ignore her?" Izuku could scarcely believe it himself.

"Yep." Paladin confirms. "She's probably imagining our reunion right now, expecting to get some verbal abuse on me one last time. I'm not going to give her the satisfaction. Besides, I no longer consider her a part of my family, she is just a completely unrelated person to me. The last Purity-oriented action I'm going to do in my life is thanking Rabbit and his party for arresting her after this talk is over."

Izuku has a faint feeling that there is wisdom to be learned here. Yes, Yoichi Shigaraki/Midoriya might have been pretty damn villainous in the end (and his repentance story somehow made it worse), but… is it really all that important right now?

Is there really a point in getting worried, nervous and so on, tearing your brain to shred over a man who is literally no longer here?

Just get over it. You have people that depend on you.

"And before you ask, I genuinely hope that she'll get therapy and become less of a dick." Paladin replies. Even such a simple word somehow feels wrong when coming out of his mouth. "I AM aware that she is, deep inside, mentally ill. And I hope that therapy will change that, because anyone deserves a second chance, especially if it's all due to a mental illness. But me, my brother and the rest of Knights members suffered enough at her hands that I just… don't want to see her anymore. Would awaken an awful lot of bad memories."

"Yeah, I guess it makes sense." Izuku admits before sighing loudly. "How's Howl doing, by the way?"

Paladin clearly doesn't like the change in subject.

(***)

Day Earlier

After the Raid

"So, do you want to talk about it?" Paladin decides to conjure all his skill in the pep talk that he has.

It more or less falls flat. Suto just looks up at him from her seat on the hospital corridor. She clearly cried a lot. It was rather clear that it wasn't the end of it, she was going to start crying again very soon.

"I… I'm sorry!" She freaks out. "I should have told you about us, I…"

"It's alright, it's alright!" Paladin lies (but in good faith, really). Honestly, she was going to get an earful about it from both the police and himself, but it really wasn't the right time for that. "Do you want to talk about it?" He adds as he sits right next to her.

Suto sniffs loudly. For someone with her sense of smell, having her nose blocked is probably like a normal human losing their eyesight.

"I don't know." She looks down once more. "I hoped t-that I could p-persuade him to s-surrender, but…"

"But?" Paladin asks her when the silence grows too long.

"It wasn't him." She sniffs. "I-it's as if h-he was possessed or something, he had t-the same face but…"

"First generation meta-abilities can make you insane, you heard that during the orientation." Paladin decides to remind her of that. "Your friend is just ill, that's all."

"He killed people!" She almost shouts at him. "He sounded proud of this, he…"

"Legally speaking…" Paladin decides to cut in. "... your friend is a monster and a murderer, although with insanity as an attenuating circumstances. Religiously speaking, it's only a sin if you commited it consciously, and you can't commit it consciously when you're insane. And since our entire organization is all about ignoring the law in favour for religion…"

He gives one of his patented 'ha, awesome joke, now laugh with me' looks. She actually chuckles, flinging some leftover tears around.

"Y-yeah, I g-guess." She admits. "S-so, w-what happens next?"

"You've rendered him powerless, so he can be kept imprisoned without much issue." Paladin replies. "He'll get the therapy he needs, maybe it'll lead us all somewhere."

Ryo Inui was apparently making some progress with Firestorm. Very small one, it was going to take years to get anywhere, but it was a proof of concept that with enough effort you can make the first gen users more or less stable.

Near the lower end of 'stable' on the spectrum, but…

"What about you?" Paladin decides to ask while Suto/Howl is looking down, clearly thinking about something.

"I k-know he h-hates me." She states. "But I-I'll k-keep visiting h-him, even if h-he'll keep s-shouting at me t-that he w-wants to k-kill me f-for w-what I did. T-Tenko w-would d-do that for me, I'm s-sure."

Alright, now Paladin is incredibly proud of her.

(***)

Now

"I don't even want to imagine what she went through." Izuku sighs. "Discovering that your one and only friend that you made through the internet due to being practically locked in your house for 'looking differently' was now a murderer and all that, was…"

"I think…" Paladin says slowly. "That he was on the trajectory to be more than just a friend before his quirk manifested."

Izuku says nothing for a few long seconds.

"I'm beginning to truly see why most non-metahuman's reaction to the discovery that meta-abilities can be summed up 'God I hate to live in interesting times'." Midoriya eventually states. Paladin shrugs. "Don't you feel bad about calling them blessings?"

"Hey, God gave us sapience, a bunch of people used their ability for introspection to create stupid radical ideologies that killed millions." Paladin explains dryly. "I have a rather low opinion on Mankind as a species. Makes you cherish the exceptions. Speaking of, I have potentially good news that I'm going to spill on you right now, since she clearly isn't here. Shuzenji finished running the blood tests. It's positive."

Oh, dear.

"I'll… relay it to Tsuyu when I'll have the time." Izuku replies. She'll probably enjoy having more family members. And she - as stated multiple times - deserved all the good things in the world. "Speaking off, did you recover the person you were looking for? You know, the girl that initially made you realize that something was happening on the mountain?"

"Thank God, recovered safely." Paladin replies. "Will probably end up joining the Knights, if only because her friend is connected to the organization."

"Oh, what was her quirk by the way?" Izuku asks.

Paladin pulls out a phone and shows him the picture.

"Are you kidding me?" Izuku asks, slightly dumbfounded. "Good idea to NOT show it to me earlier, I would probably think that you were pulling my leg."

Christian extremist (okay, more like 'radical' and manageably so) organization planning an assault on a supervillain hideout to rescue a girl that literally looked like a demon. Red skin, vertically slitted-eyes, noticeable fangs, a pair of horns on her head.

Wow.

If there is God, it's probably His equivalent of a practical joke, especially as the girl in question was clearly rescued and her tale resulted in a lot of people being rescued on the way.

Paladin shrugs.

"Hey, as long as they are alright with reading a Bible once in a while without spontaneously combusting, I'm totally okay with recruiting demons into my organization." Paladin replies with a faint smirk on his face. "See how tolerant and diverse we are? Bonus points for her relation with her online friend being on the verge of going beyond friendship, at least judging from how their reunion went."

Izuku does a double take.

"Wait, wasn't her friend a girl too?" He kind of expected different commentary on said reunion that Paladin adapting a mischievous smile, seeing as he, well. Izuku really wasn't sure what his stance on modern sociological questions was, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

"Yes." Paladin replies. The smile vanished, instead he deadpans his next words. "But the rescued girl's complex mutation is clearly succubus-inspired. I don't think they'll have a lot of problems with one of them getting pregnant the 'natural' way, if you catch my drift."

It takes Izuku a few seconds to catch his drift. Then he naturally burns red.

"Oh, uhm, that's an…" He blinks. "... that's good for them?"

Paladin chuckles at that.

"Very good, yeah." Then he sighs. "I really don't want to know how the Dawn of Quirks will influence stuff like that in the long-term, and I think that I'm happy that most of it will be a problem for future generations. We just have to make sure that civilization survives until then, which is objectively less complicated and problematic."

Somehow Izuku really doesn't want to talk about sexuality in the world of mutant quirks. Or even about bits of their anatomy connected to the subject. Yeah, a big no.

(***)

Mirai Sasaki is busy with normal principal work when he is suddenly phoned. It's Defiant, of all people.

"Yes?" He asks when he picks it up.

"I'm… well, I won't say 'alright', but certainly much better." He hears and… phew. That's a massive relief. "Your little plan of sending Uraraka after me worked wonders."

Oh. His voice sounds a little sour at that. And he connected the dots enough to trace the situation into its source. That's… not exactly what Mirai Sasaki expected to happen. He really was growing.

"So you figured it out." Mirai Sasaki replies while leaning back in his seat. "I am not going to apologize for it. It was, in this particular set of circumstances, the most logical way. We couldn't, we can't lose you, especially in light of the new… developments considering your quirk."

"I am more than just my quirk." Defiant replies. Dryly. Looks like a sour spot. Well, seeing the 'heritage' attached to One for All, it was perfectly understandable.

"Of course you are." Mirai admits. Even without a quirk, he was a rough diamond in the mud from day one. If Mirai Sasaki found out about him earlier, he would be studying on UA by the time his power manifested.

He had that strange type of charisma that stemmed from both his genuine dedication to his ideals and readiness to uphold them no matter the circumstances. He was a naturalborn leader, except one that anxiety, critical lack of self-worth and a certain now dead asshole kept suppressed for years.

Mirai Sasaki was certain that if history occurred differently and Bakugou Katsuki wasn't there, Izuku would - through his tutelage no doubt - end up in the National Diet. Maybe even in the cabinet itself.

"However, we both know that your quirk is invaluable right now." Sasaki replies. "It won't be even if it's… counterpart will be safely disposed of, but if he manages to prolong his own existence and naturally grow stronger over time, then eventually what you're carrying might be the only power to match it."

It hopefully won't happen. But…

Mirai Sasaki is simultaneously terrified and amazed by Hisashi Shigaraki. His quirk was one thing, but the vision, ruthlessness and opportunism needed to reshape a single scientific discovery into a worldwide conspiracy was…

Mindblowing, really.

Sasaki is conscious of his own strengths and weaknesses enough to recognize a man of superior skills in the same field.

It will not stop him at all from doing his utmost to take him down.

If he is to be honest, a part of it is out of injured pride. All the influence that Mirai Sasaki had, and somehow, he wasn't among the mind-controlled individuals? It felt like a slap in the face from All for One.

There was a minuscule chance that he actually was unconsciously mind-controlled. But Nedzu clearly knew who was and who wasn't under it. Telling them about all of that while knowing that Aizawa and Sasaki were going to involved - and one of them was AFO's mole - would be suicidal.

To everyone involved, including Nedzu.

"Makes sense." Defiant admits. "But it doesn't change the fact that I'm feeling… distaste right now."

"I'd argue that the fact that you can speak of it to me…" Sasaki replies. "...validates what I did."

"How did you know what Uraraka did?" Izuku changes the subject.

"Mostly from JGSDF documents obtained while I was trying to trace her backstory." Mirai Sasaki calmly admits to having access to things that were confidential. "The high command was suspecting that particular guerilla unit of 'misbehaving', so to speak, but with how the war was going at the time, they had no way of investigating it properly. I think that what she did spared the country quite a number of trials and freed some space in several prisons for future usage."

"It was an accident." Izuku replies. "An escape attempt gone horribly wrong… or right, depending on whom you ask."

Oh. Looks like the 'lighter' option turned out to be the right one. It was either escape attempt gone wrong or a planned mass murder, for as far as the evidence available to Mirai went. Without any survivors to ask, he couldn't get any more intel.

There were survivors. But none of the few of them were particularly talkative, for obvious reasons. And for as much as Mirai Sasaki was recently getting more and more morally ambiguous out of necessity, he wasn't quite ready to have someone kidnapped and interrogated forcefully.

Mirai Sasaki is relieved that it was an accident.

"There is no conclusive evidence for her connection to that… event." Mirai states. "Even I only connected the dots due to noticing the symptoms of rape trauma syndrome in her. For as long as she doesn't announce that it was her job, I believe that the only people aware of what happened are me, Ryo Inui, plus whoever she told about it alongside you."

He is surprisingly certain that if Tsuyu Asui and Mei Hatsume didn't know about it yet, they'd certainly learn the details very, very soon.

"Well, I don't plan to tell anyone more." Izuku replies. "Tsuyu would never do something that could hurt Ochako, and Mei had to be talked out of using her family assets to find whoever was left from that guerilla unit and feed them alive to wild animals, before promising to never tell anyone. So it's all up to Ochako and…" He pauses meaningfully.

Yeah, Mirai Sasaki's instinct didn't betray him.

"No one finds out on our side." Principal replies. "I destroyed the documents just in case, and I do not believe that there are any copies of those left, though I can't be one hundred percent sure with how… chaotic things are nowadays. We certainly aren't telling anyone."

"So, we're burying the whole issue." Izuku replies. "Good, good. I assume there'll be a meeting later in the day with Commissioner Aizawa?"

"That's what I suspect, yes." Principal agrees. "We really need to reestablish some… cohesive policies in the aftermath of the Gunga Mountain Raid. In the meantime… I trust that we're keeping the One for All, All for One and the genesis of quirks a secret?"

"We do, yes." Izuku replies. The implications of AFO's quirk and his very existence are… terrifying. And potentially demoralizing. So are the results of the people that trust in him discovering that his father started World War Three, his motives for it be damned. "We should probably write All for One into the Hero Network database under some false quirk, maybe some sort of 'can use powers of others for as long as he is emotionally connected to them' so that the people who accidentally run into him will know to expect everything. But, well, not now."

"Only after he'll find out we're onto him, for as long as we fail to eliminate him immediately afterwards, yes." Mirai agrees with Izuku on that. "Any plans on handling the Meta-Liberation Army on the Metahuman Network side?"

He doesn't have any authority on it. He can only advise Izuku, especially if he truly wants Defiant to bloom as a leader. But… it's something that might require some subtlety to not make things happen when they shouldn't.

"There is a high risk that they either have already infiltrated at least some regional branches or they'll attempt to do so soon enough." Izuku admits. "I suspect that they didn't gain much ground, if only due to Hijack's loyalty tests. But we have to ensure that this fact stays a fact."

"Your plan being?" Mirai asks.

"I think that I'm going to make an official statement to the Network as a whole concerning the MLA's false flag recruitment operation." Defiant replies. "Their claims of representing metahumans against government oppression should find much less fertile ground after people would find out that they manufactured said oppression for recruitment purposes. If there are any spies in the Network, there is a chance that it will sow a certain degree of doubt in them, especially if they went past such a recruitment facility in the past without knowing it."

"So, a PR blow in order to limit their recruitment capabilities and ensure the loyalty of Network members." Sasaki finds himself nodding. "That's a good idea. It should work wonders especially once we start returning the rescued metahumans to their home prefectures."

"Why w… oh." Looks like Izuku realized it only now. "A lot if not most of them will probably not want to have anything to do with superhero work. But we're going to end up capitalizing a lot on my decision for the to involve unaligned metahumans for the purpose of socialization among their peers. Even if they won't join the Network proper, they'll still be there to share their testimonies with the local Network members."

"I believed that idea of yours to be a major security risk, and was against it." Mirai sighs. "I still think it's a major security risk, and I didn't know of the MLA back then, but I have to admit that in hindsight, the benefits might just outweigh the risks."

He personally hopes that seeing that the country declined further in their absence would motivate at least some of the rescued captives to become heroes. They needed everyone they could on their side, and that was a fact. But forcing them would just aggravate the Gunga Mountain trauma and make the government appear at least almost as bad as the MLA made it to look.

There is no forcing that particular issue.

"What about the dragon?" Izuku asks. Mirai Sasaki would like to know the answer himself..

(***)

Day Earlier

Late Night

"You know…" Shihai Kuroiro announces loudly. "... I really expected something more from you."

The dragon in front of him takes a step back, lowering its head a little. Despite the apparently submissive gesture, there is hatred in its glare.

There was a fierce fight around the forest clearance. The dragon is injured, not to a crippling degree, but badly.

"I would crush you like a bug if it was during the day." It - no, she - says. "This doesn't count."

"Ryuko, Ryuko, Ryuko…" Kuroiro sighs. His business suit isn't even damaged. It was dark enough for him to manage to partially take over her own body, hurling her around and causing a lot of self-inflicted injuries. "You know the rules and so do I. You leveraged your familial connection to Abegawa Tenchu Kai in order to contact me and issue a challenge. You promised to yield and serve me if I won. You know that if you don't persuade me that you won't try anything funny tomorrow morning, you won't leave to see it?"

Ryuko Tatsuma's glare grows somewhat frightened. Good, good. Her dragonization 1st gen quirk clearly makes her haughty and greedy, like a dragon should. She has to understand her place.

Shihai Kuroiro loves Cloud's warpgate, but c'mon. Using a dragon as a mount is an objectively cooler and more intimidating way of travel.

"In the meantime…" Kuroiro looks beside Tatsuma, at a group of former inmates from Nabu Mountains facility (apparently governmental, but Kuroiro really doesn't buy it, especially not under Defiant's and Aizawa's nose) she carried here. They were all standing at one edge of the clearing, the other one occupied by League members and some quirkless thugs he brought with him. "... which one of you wants decent accommodations, proper healthcare plan and an occasion to instill fear of god into the hearts of the local police officers and some pesky criminal competition? League of Villains is on a lookout for new talents, you see. And I can recognize talent when I'm seeing it."