Shahryar - Hahaha :P Status of One For All is going to stay a secret for a long time, let me tell you that much.
FrozenLion12 - Another commenter arrived D: Nice!
(***)
Ten Years Ago
"Don't stand in my way! Do you wanna fucking die?!" Bakugou yells at him. Because that's what he always does. Midoriya wasn't even standing directly in his way, the explodo-gremlin was just being an ass.
As always. Ugh. At least they weren't classmates for a few years now, ever since Midoriya moved to another school. Despite that, Bakugou clearly recognized him. He isn't going to be your classmate again, right? Right?
Alright, Izuku. Keep it up. You're going to prove your father wrong. Mom helped you train. All Might helped you train (let's ignore the part when you can't tell him who your father is due to a quirk-enforced contract with said father). Even dad, in a way, helped you train (mostly the brain though). This is the first day of the rest of your life. Which is going to be nice.
Then he trips.
In all honesty, that was a rather pathetic start to the rest of his life. But his mother was an S-Rank thief famous for her agility. And she did train him. So he managed to twist the fall into a forward roll, saving himself from the embarrassment and his nose from being squashed.
Damn it, Izu. At least Bakugou didn't see it happen.
He stands up and looks back while dusting his clothes off, hoping to check what exactly he tripped on. Then he freezes.
There is a girl standing there (a pretty one!), extending her fingers into the air and looking at Midoriya with a rather amusing expression on her face.
No signs of mutations. No, wait. Fingerpads. Contact-quirk? Probably a five-finger point one, like Hana and Tenko. Those tend to be powerful, Midoriya is already excited about finding out what it does!
He isn't excited about almost anything else, though.
"Uhm?" Izuku manages to say(?), before the girl freaks out.
"I didn't trip you!" She says while waving her hands in panic. "I saw you falling, I wanted to catch you with my quirk, but… that was an awesome forward roll!"
It was, technically, an admission to illegal quirk usage. Then again, the law on that was more or less logical. This type of a quirk usage was treated like loitering, a misdemeanor more than a crime.
Besides, someone had to report you for anyone to care, and even then it was more of a 'serious talk about it, young lady' stuff. Still, it was quite nice to hear that she did that for him. Though those might be his family… tendencies speaking.
"T…thank you." Midoriya isn't sure how to talk with girls. The ones at school all treated him like a plague carrier due to his quirklessness, and Hana was… honestly, you could easily forget that she was a girl. And she was family. "What's your quirk?"
He doesn't expect much from that meeting. If she passes, she'll probably join the 'let's ignore Midoriya' party as always. But he might as well learn something about her before it happens. And he's really curious about her quirk.
"Uhm, I make everything I touch with five finger points weightless." She replies and Izuku is in awe. It is such an awesome quirk for a hero! The rescue work alone… neither Tenko nor Hana's quirks can really be used in heroics, both being instantly or almost instantly lethal and only really capable of destroying things. But this? "And yours?"
Oh, shit. Well, there goes his fifteen seconds long friendship.
"I'm… uhm… I'm actually quirkless." He ends up opening his mouth like a dumb idiot he was. There it goes. The inevitable look of revulsion and… wait, why is there none of it?
"And you're here for the hero course exam?" She looks confused more than revolted or anything. "I mean, you are clearly much more fit than me, especially with that forward roll, but… you heard that the exams tend to be about fighting robots, right?" Yeah, he had a handful of plans on how to deal with that issue, but before that…
Is she worried about him? Why is she worried about him?!
"Uhm, that's what the exam is for, I think?" She asks, and he realizes that he was shocked enough to snap back to his mumbling behavior. Damn it. "I mean, if you can fight robots, you're clearly strong enough to be a hero, right? Regardless of what quirk you have or even if you don't have any, right?"
He stares at her in shock. He'll realize after the exam has ended that he obtained his first childhood crush at that very moment. Midoriya Izuku himself will realize quickly that falling in love with a girl simply because she wasn't revolted with his very existence is sad, but… that's just the way his life worked.
"Let's pass the exam and become heroes, alright!" She smiles at him and… Honestly, who wouldn't fall in love with that smile?
(***)
"You've gotta be shitting me." Bakugou looks almost traumatized. Somehow, just somehow he turned white as a sheet. He is even too shocked to yell, and that's a new one. Not too shocked to swear, apparently. "Who the fuck voted for Deku?"
"... certainly not you." Sero comments from the side, with an almost impish grin on his face. The 'not after what he did to you during the battle trial' is heavily implied.
Midoriya baited Bakugou into using his overpowered explosion attack in a way that made a ceiling of them actually collapse on him, without injuring Izuku. And then simply tased him into unconsciousness, before rushing off to confront Kirishima together with his teammate, Asui.
It was… honestly the whole part of taking Bakugou down so that they could focus on his teammate stung the most. Bakugou was walking around with almost dead eyes for the rest of the day.
Uraraka does her best not to look suspicious. It's so thoroughly not suspicious that it loops back to being suspicious. Tsuyu doesn't bother hiding that one of the votes was hers. Iida seems to be too dejected for not being chosen to raise his hand and come forward with another of the votes being his.
"I-I-I mean…" Midoriya is staring at the vote tally on the blackboard in total shock. Somehow, he looks even more shocked than Bakugou does. He didn't even vote for himself! He gave his vote to Yaoyorozu, so how the hell did he win with her five to four?!
That wasn't supposed to happen! Hell, it couldn't happen! It was just… just absolutely impossible! Howhowhowhowhowhow
"It's representative Midoriya and vice-representative Yaoyorozu then." Eraserhead announces, sounding as tired as always. "Come forward if you want to say anything to the class." He looks reassured that it's over.
"No!" Midoriya stands up, his shout startling everyone. "Y-you can't elect me!"
"Midobro?" Kirishima blinks at him a few times, somehow speaking as the first one. He didn't say it, but one of the votes that Midoriya got was from him. Kirishima was incredibly impressed by how one-sided his fight was.
"Just, no!" Midoriya waves his hands in front of him. He really resembles Tenya now. "I'm quirkless! If people hear that you've made me a class representative, they're going to look down on you! It's bad enough that you're sharing a class with me, I don't want you to…"
"No one here cares!" Uraraka cuts in. They only talked a few times thus far, but she already considers him to be her friend and… she knows how insecure he is about his own quirk status. "I mean, except for Bakugou." She adds, vaguely aware that it damages her own position on it. Damn.
Bakugou is still too out of it to yell. The small mercies. Uraraka considers him to be an ass, and that's putting it mildly. She deeply dislikes mean people, and he is practically her definition of 'mean person' at this point.
"Uraraka-san is correct." Iida cuts in, sounding as officially as ever. He seems to have recovered from the earlier shock. "You have managed to pass the exam like we all did. There is no reason for you to be treated differently by us."
To be honest about it, Tenya isn't fully sure how the whole 'quirkless hero' bit will play out. To him, hero = someone using a quirk to save people. It's the police force that doesn't use the quirks to save people. Midoriya, in his opinion, would absolutely excel in that. But he supports his new friend because, in his own way, he is trying to make amends.
He feels guilty for not trying to help Uraraka during the exam. It was Midoriya that rushed in and managed to free her under the rubble. Izuku only barely managed to pass, with merely a few one-pointers (taken down through some creative usage of environment), but it was the rescue points that helped him get in.
Tenya Iida feels guilty for not measuring up to Midoriya back then, and for that reason alone he'll do his utmost to help him.
It's true that at least some of their classmates have some doubts. It's honestly not surprising at all. Heroics are greatly reliant on image, and they all want to get famous and successful. They are decent enough people to not go against what was said, but it's clear that a solid half of the class isn't exactly willing to die on this hill.
Midoriya can't blame them. Midoriya is too busy freaking out over being treated so impossibly well. Even the half that seems to be on the fence is more than he expected to get on the UA.
"N-no, just no." Midoriya, after so many years of the world treating him that way, doesn't know how to deal with it. And he is vaguely aware that being a class representative requires talking with a lot of people. He certainly isn't ready for it. "I-I'm h-honored, but… you should give that spot to Iida. He i-is much more qualified and…"
Eraserhead is staring at him without a word. No one knows what it is about. Save for Hound Dog that was later that day approached about the issue.
"Midoriya-kun…" Tenya tries to cut in, but after seeing the face that Midoriya gave him, he changes his mind about the way the cutting-in was supposed to proceed. Forcing it against his friend's will is in no way a form of atonement. "... fine. If the class agrees to it. But I AM going to ask you about your input when in doubt."
Midoriya DID prove to have an excellent tactical mind, after all. And Tenya honestly feels like he's only filling in for him.
For now, Izuku looks reassured. Uraraka and Asui are giving him some worried looks that he seems to have failed to notice.
A minute later Tenya Iida is elected. Although he - to Eraserhead's small dismay connected to the time being wasted - ends up deciding to be a vice-representative, seeing that Yaoyorozu did get a lot more votes than he did. Yaoyorozu agrees to that arrangement.
Midoriya is sneaky enough for no one to realize that he ended up hiding in the school's bathroom during the next break. That he spent on crying. For the first time in a while, those were tears of pure happiness.
He almost breaks into tears again when right after that he walks into Uraraka, who panics after seeing the physical signs of him recently crying. He isn't used to people being worried about it. At least those not from his family. But it's nice. He never imagined it to be so nice.
(***)
"Hey, Midoriya." Asui asks soon after the bus departs. "I always speak what's on my mind. And right now, it's a question." She ignores his slight freak out over the girl on the seat right next to him speaking to him. "Are you sure that you don't have an intelligence quirk, ribbit?"
"E…eeeh?" It doesn't exactly count as an answer. But that's all that he has for her. What did she just…
"Damn, that would be cool." Kirishima, who is sitting behind Asui, cuts in. "Intelligence quirks are awesome and super manly!" He ignores Mina's exasperated look. "Though let's be real, if you kicked our asses this hard without using a quirk, you having one would make you one hell of a broken charact… What?!" Mina actually mock-punched him in the arm.
"Not cool, Kiri." She shakes her head while returning to her seat. "I get the intent, but not cool." He looks confused.
"Even if you don't have a quirk, you're clearly super smart." She then says to Midoriya. "Honestly, work on this and I'd totally want you in my hero agency once I graduate! It'd be like the All Might and Sir Nighteye duo, right? I'm really dumb so having someone with your smarts would be super helpful."
It wasn't just the Battle Trial. They heard his analysis of other fights. It was… maybe not inspirational, but it told them a lot about him.
"Pffft, as if Deku gets to graduate." Bakugou gives him a nasty snarl from his seat.
"If I had to choose one of you to be denied a chance to graduate, I'd choose Bakugou. Ribbit." Asui replies almost immediately. Midoriya opens his mouth, knowing fully well that he has no idea what to say, but…
"You have a problem with me, Frog Face?!" Bakugou shoots back. Asui is remarkably unmoved.
"You want me to list them alphabetically or chronologically? Ribbit." Tsuyu replies, tilting her head a bit and giving him a rather emotionless stare. How she manages to make it simultaneously aggressive is a mystery to everyone in the bus.
"Yeah, it's only been a brief while since our socialization has commenced…" Kaminari cuts in from his seat. "...and yet already we have been made apodictically cognizant of your personality, redolent as it is of a turd getting steamed in a sewer."
Kyoka shoots Bakugou a nasty stare as he stands back from the seat next to her to shout something expletive-laden towards Kaminari, who clearly doesn't give a fuck. Instead, he turns his head towards Midoriya.
"I'm all for being in a hero agency with you!" He says ignoring Bakugou and giving him a thumbs-up gesture. "You're super smart, and all I do is just knock myself out with my quirk. It's going to get myself killed if I don't figure out a way around it, methinks."
Midoriya already has an idea or two, he notes it down in his mind to talk about them with Kaminari after the Rescue Trial. In the meantime, he is too busy trying not to freak out in front of him.
They… they accepted him. It was Bakugou that was picked on, not him. They actually wanted to become heroes with him. Midoriya for the first time in years was happy. Not happy as in 'Oh I just watched a very cool comedy and I'm smiling'. Happy as in 'I think my life might be worth living after all'.
He is going to make the most out of it.
(***)
"Stand back, those are real villains!" Eraserhead shouts at them. Midoriya is too busy being frozen in horror.
It's Hana. His father's first lieutenant is here. Together with villains. Loads and loads of villains. Emerging from Kurogiri's warpgate in front of their class. And All Might isn't here.
NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO…
(***)
Seven Years Ago
Singularity is confused. And worried. The [Owner] isn't happy. He isn't acting healthily. Making him happy and healthy is her reason for living. This is wrong. She knows it, but she doesn't know how to help him. He isn't telling her how to help him, either.
He spent the first three days after Deika either staring absentmindedly into a wall or crying. She focused on making sure that the [Owner] at least ate something. Not eating wasn't healthy. She couldn't do much about him not showering and almost certainly not sleeping enough, but…
She was about to put the food in front of him (it's katsudon, [Owner]'s favorite, it would cheer him up a bit, yes? Yes?), when he suddenly snapped up, grabbing a phone and calling someone.
"Asa." She hears [Owner] speak. "We're doing it tonight. Yes, yes I know. But he isn't expecting it. Especially not right now. That's our chance. Grab Aiko, I'll get Tenko and Entropy. I'll have Cloud warp you two here. It's time to end this."
He puts the phone down. She puts the food down. She isn't sure what to say right now. But she feels like she should say something.
"Izuku, I…" She says. [Owner] doesn't give her the time for that. He stands up and suddenly hugs her tight.
"I know that I apologized for this a thousand times…" [Owner] says. She lets him do it. She can feel tears streaming off his face and onto her shoulder. He needs it. "... but I'm so sorry for what happened to you, Uraraka. I don't think that I can help you, but I'll at least kill the bastard that did it to you. There is a chance that I won't come back, so…"
"No!" She cuts in. "You can't die!" She's hardwired to die the second he dies, but it's absolutely not on her mind right now. [Owner] can't die! She is supposed to protect him, and…
He takes a slight step back, his hands on her cheeks. She gets a close-up of his crying face.
"I can't help you, but I can make sure that the same thing doesn't happen to anyone else." He says, determination and hatred (not towards her) on his face, only barely hidden behind the tears. "And I will, even if it kills me. It's the least I can do after… all this."
She is trying to argue back, but he orders her to stay behind. She is almost dying of worry for the next few hours, before [Owner] returns home. Tired and battered, with a lot of nasty wounds that she helped him patch up, but victorious.
She realizes much later that it was the last time she saw [Owner] cry.
(***)
Six Years Ago
Paranormal Liberation Front after Deika decentralized. Trying to take over an entire city to change it into their main base of operations was seen as suicidal (probably incorrectly, even the HSPC wouldn't nuke a city with a population that wasn't in 99% composed of villains, but…), so they went for it differently.
The room was located in one of the many PLF safehouses. That particular one was in a slightly seedier district of Kyoto, one where the PLF's messages against the heroes found fertile ground.
Most of the PLF's leadership was mobile, using Kurogiri for transports between safehouses. The trust between the three co-commanders was rather limited, so each of them had their own secret hideouts.
Kurogiri was impeccably impartial. Didn't stop Midoriya from making his own supposed hideout to actually be a dummy. When Kurogiri was leaving it, he had Cloud move him to his actual hideout. Paranoia was his way of life nowadays.
They were also semi-official safehouses used for face-to-face meetings. This one was such a safehouse, in the middle of a meeting.
"So, considering that I'm being the biggest supporter of your experiments…" Midoriya says, while Uraraka hands the suitcase to Chronostasis. "... I'd like to ask you about the progress report."
He is wearing a business suit. Somehow, All for One's fashion sense rubbed off on him. At least when he was doing business. After all those years he almost managed to figure out how ties worked - mostly thanks to Trumpet.
And he still feels vaguely reassured by Uraraka being there to correct his occasional fuck-ups. And to remind him about the whole issue.
Overhaul snorts under the mask, but doesn't elaborate. Chronostasis opens the suitcase and checks the insides. Then he shows it to Chisaki.
"That's less blood than we agreed on." Chisaki points out.
"Eri caught the flu." Midoriya replies. Overhaul's eyes narrow. "Look, Overhaul. We had a deal, I know. I got Eri, you got regular donations of her blood without having to deal with her. Regular donations of a certain size. But we both know what was supposed to be the end-goal of this deal. Where is my quirk erasing drug? Where are my permanent quirk-bestowal drugs?"
At least he inherited an acquaintance from All for One. One with liquid multiplication quirk. Eri was donating one fifth of blood that she had to while captive by Overhaul. And even that left a bad taste in Midoriya's mouth.
"There were… complications." Overhaul replies. Midoriya stares daggers at him. Low-intensity, for now.
"It's been almost eighteen months." Midoriya points out. It's been a long time. Especially as they were waging a war.
"You do realize that I'm doing something that no one else ever managed to do?" Overhaul refuses to back down. In the PLF' leadership, they are equals. He might be the official co-commander of it, but it's Entropy that's the true leader. "It takes time."
"We don't have time." Midoriya replies dryly. Overhaul gives him a questioning stare. "Entropy's growing more and more unhinged. I'm monitoring her closely, and I do not like what I'm seeing."
They are co-workers, not friends. Midoriya will never forget what Chisaki was doing to Eri. He might be willing to forgive him, at least once Chisaki agreed to vanish from her life forever, but that's all.
Midoriya tolerated working with the same Entropy that murdered some of his classmates, so he could deal with that. Narrowly. And only because they could only achieve their goals together. But he could.
Despite that, they know each other. Quite well, in fact. Overhaul realizes immediately that something's very, very wrong. The look on Revenant's face is rather obvious.
(Oh, how many years it will take for that villain name to become public knowledge).
"What's going on?" Overhaul asks. Entropy wasn't particularly talkative with him nowadays, especially since the disaster that Aichi was for the Front, but…
"She's beginning to realize that the situation… isn't progressing in our favor." Midoriya replies. It's a very light way of saying 'we're losing the war pretty fast'. "She is considering alternative options."
"Such as?"
"She is thinking about activating Armageddon." Midoriya replies. Overhaul's eyes grow wide. "On the mainland, worst of all. And we both know that she is the only person that can control it. So when she does that, she might decide that we're no longer needed."
Worst of all? She'll be right. Armageddon can win the war without any support whatsoever. Ever since All for One and All Might perished, no one could battle it from a position of advantage.
Of course, that's only half the reason for Midoriya disliking the very idea. The civilian casualties will be horrible, and Izuku Midoriya wholeheartedly believed that there is no point in winning against the heroes if you end up inheriting a wasteland.
They are supposed to build a better world. Corpse-laden wasteland doesn't count as an improvement to the current state of affairs.
Overhaul actually shares both concerns with Revenant. That says more than it should about the problem in question, especially considering the fact that Overhaul is a borderline amoral sociopath. If even he thinks that it's going too far…
What the hell was happening to Entropy? She was always murder-happy, but recently…
"... I've hit a bottleneck." Overhaul decides to admit. "I need certain… research data to proceed. I'm almost there. Just two or three months and…"
"... and we'll have something to win without deploying Armageddon." Midoriya interjects, completely ignoring the part when a significant chunk of his desire for the completion of the research is for rather selfish reasons. Overhaul nods. "Where can I find what you need? I'll get it, regardless of the cost."
He has a stellar record when obtaining medical equipment and the like is involved. Not their first rodeo.
"Even you can't pay for that." Overhaul replies. Midoriya opens his mouth to protest, but he doesn't let him. "It's in Garaki's lab."
Midoriya closes his mouth. This is… literally the worst imaginable case scenario. He'd rather break into UA, hell, Tartarus itself.
"Then it's all over." Midoriya says while deflating in his seat. Uraraka shoots him a worried look. "No one has ever returned from Jaku since the 'accident'."
"I… might be able to do it." Overhaul replies and Midoriya finds himself staring at him in shock.
"You know what happened there?" Midoriya asks hurriedly, curiosity blooming on his face. "Tell me what…" Overhaul shakes his head.
"Let it stay buried." He replies. His voice is bitter. "Doctor Garaki is gone, and his final creation is best left forgotten. I can go there and retrieve the data, but it'll be dangerous if I were to hurry it."
He probably planned to do it on his own, but hearing about Armageddon changed the estimated timetable of events. Even Overhaul is afraid of Entropy finally losing her marbles. She doesn't have a lot of them left, either way.
"I need to get into the Jaku Exclusion Zone with a handful of Noumus." Overhaul continues. "Without the heroes stationed at the perimeter noticing anything. But I can't ask Kurogiri or Eclipse to warp me there, or she'll find out. Do you…"
"I think…" Midoriya says slowly. "... that I know of a way." Revealing the existence of Cloud to Overhaul feels like a small price to pay.
(***)
Chisaki returns from the Jaku Exclusion Zone a day later. Without noumus, but with a mysterious suitcase. He looks like he aged at least ten years during that time. He refuses to elaborate on what he saw in the Exclusion Zone.
Midoriya realizes a few weeks later that what left the JEZ was a shell of a man he used to know.
Few weeks later, the HPSC locates his lab.
(***)
Izuku being much more... anxious about his quirklessness than in TTB makes sense if you put it in context. It's rather clear that AFO didn't die, and seeing as if he probably planned the whole Paranormal Liberation War ahead AND the fact that he was still the ruler of the underworld, I wouldn't be surprised if he intentionally amplified the tensions surrounding the groups he planned to recruit in the end by making them feel more embattled and alienated from the general society.
In case you didn't notice it by now, this isn't one of the 'AFO is bad but kinda endearing actually'. He's much more like his canon self.
Also poor Kaminari. He had no idea that he was raising the death flag.
