fencer29 - Damaging AFO's love for suits must have been more crippling that what AM did to im in pre-canon :V
Shahryar - They don't have to, he has his own folks :v
ImGolden - Shame you probably won't reach the current moment, but yeah, it's kind of a harem. Except I'm getting recurrent feedback alongside of 'I don't like harems but somehow I really like how you di dit in your fic'. Sigh.
Smiley-Nami - Since the fic's already fully written, it won't be long :v
(***)
Izuku opens his eyes again, just to see Eri smiling at him, her quirk switched off. Her parents (let's call it that way, it's rather clear where it's heading) are behind her, and so are Eclipse and Mocchan.
They are all in his still not fully furnished home. Best place to be rewound into usefulness, especially if he is supposed to stay quiet for a moment.
"Izuku!" Eri ignores the rather heavy atmosphere (especially her parents clearly have opinions to share) and lunges at him, grabbing him into a hug just as Izuku raises from the couch. "You did it!"
Ah. Yes, Overhaul was finally out, and… Eri was free. Finally free from the shadow of that monster. No wonder she was happy.
"Yep, my favorite little unicorn." Midoriya replies with a smile, giving her the headpats she deserved. "It sometimes takes them a while, but superheroes always win, right?"
She wasn't old enough for anyone to show her the sort of comics where the heroes lose or die. For now… she was a child. A small one, too. She deserved to be unfailingly optimistic and happy while her parents protected her from the nastier parts of the world.
Especially after she already experienced those big time.
"So, did I miss anything?" Izuku asks Eri. Her parents are still there, in the background, clearly waiting for Eri to be done with her thing.
Eri pulls back, with a smile on her face (it might be a tiny bit mischievous). Then she pulls something out of the backpack that she put on the floor next to her before moving over to healing Izuku.
It's a plushie.
It's a Defiant plushie.
"I asked Arsenal-san to make it for me!" Eri smiles while propping the plushie like her more prized possession (that it probably was). "I call him Defi-chan!"
Huh. So, while Hatsume Industries is clearly interested in spearheading into the support equipment field, Yaoyorozu Conglomerate is interested in opening the field of hero merchandise. Or, well, Momo just wanted to make Eri smile some more.
This way or another, Momo scored a big victory in Izuku's opinion. Because she made a little girl with a very traumatic backstory smile. And smile a lot.
"Well, it looks like you'll have someone to protect you when I'm not there." Izuku smiles before fist bumping the plushie. "Do your job properly, Mini-Me, or we'll have a very serious talk!"
Somehow, Eri beams even more. Izuku is going to leave thinking over his (potential) newly found fame for later.
(***)
After a few minutes, Uraraka and Mieko Eto intervene and temporarily take Eri's attention away from him. It's been clearly planned ahead, especially considering the fact that the Bakugous didn't move for an inch the whole time.
Izuku is a superhero. He, naturally, decides to take the lead.
"I'm sorry." He says, bowing towards them. "I should have told you the truth before asking you to help me. Helping Eri made you a potential target for Overhaul, and…"
"It's Bakugou." Mitsuki cuts in, Izuku raising his head in surprise. "Eri Bakugou. We've done the paperwork already. Your… friends in the police and UA helped a lot."
Oh.
"T-that's great." Izuku stammers out. "Eri deserves having a family, I'm honestly surprised that she is this happy despite losing her mom so recently, and…"
"Not… quite as happy as she acts in front of her idols." Mitsuki says, before sighing painfully. "But we're working on it. As for what you apologized for, we had a serious talk about it."
"Very serious." Her husband comments.
"Yes, very serious." Mitsuki admits. She clearly calmed down from her past, rather abrasive self. Looks like having Eri is rather therapeutic. "We're… disappointed that you didn't tell us, then again…" She sighs. "... you didn't exactly have a lot of incentives to be honest with us, seeing our common past. Frankly, I'm more surprised that you trusted us with Eri than disappointed that you didn't tell us the whole truth."
Izuku decides to not mention how he didn't really have an awful lot of alternatives back then. If he saved Eri a month later, he would probably have Principal Sasaki make arrangements for her, ones that wouldn't involve Bakugous.
Is he lying to them? Maybe. But in the end, he thinks that saving Eri when he did and making her become part of the Bakugou family was the best case scenario. For them all. So… maybe it doesn't matter.
"We were on a rather strict information regime." Midoriya replies instead. "We still are. A lot of secrets, told to the smallest number of people possible, and so on, and…"
"We realized, we don't even know where you're living despite being here. Your friend teleported us." Mitsuki replies. "It's… a nice house, but it definitely could use some additional furnishing. I-Inko would love seeing you do so well."
Her voice fails her a little when she's mentioning his mother. Izuku, to be honest, isn't sure what to think about her either. Yoichi might have started a world war, but it was Inko who kept claiming that he was a heroic person.
Did she know? Or did he hide the nasty bits from her? For as much as he saw it, his mother was a Moderate in hiding, and if he were to be frank, Moderates mostly fell into the 'cool motive, still villains' group in his book.
He'll never get the answers he wants.
"She would." Izuku smiles faintly instead. Lying or, well, avoiding problematic subjects is a skill he is rapidly improving in.
"I also remember you telling me that a certain brown-haired girl wasn't your girlfriend when you visited us last time." Mitsuki then says, and somehow, Izuku manages to blush a little at this.
"Well, errr, to be honest she wasn't my girlfriend back then." Izuku admits, looking to the side and scratching his head. "It's an, errr, developing situation."
They end up having twenty minutes of small-talk. It's… awkward, but it's also rather clear that despite their past, at the very least the Bakugous' are trying their best to bury the hatchet.
Not like they had an awful lot of it, arguably speaking Midoriya broke the hatchet in question when he killed Katsuki. But the guilt is still there.
It would be nice to know someone outside of their family who isn't a metahuman, a police officer or otherwise involved with the heroism scheme, if only to not lose touch with the 'normal people'.
(***)
To be honest, Izuku expected things to start happening right after he finally woke up. However, as Principal Sasaki explained to him, Esuha Bridge ended up putting All for One in a rather precarious position.
He used his control over the government to make Defiant into the head of the Hero Association, while simultaneously promoting the Hero System as a means of strengthening his control over Japan. He did all of that assuming that he could then control a handful of crucial members of the Association (Defiant included).
Except, his attempt to do that to Midoriya resulted in spectacular failure, and made All for One realize that Defiant is a major threat, one that can actually fight against him and, possibly, kill him.
The problem was that Hisashi was a veteran politician. He knew well enough that while he could instruct Nana Shimura to dismantle the Association, it would be an act of sheer madness, not to mention being simply counterproductive to his own goals.
It's because doing it right now would undoubtedly topple Shimura's government. Because Nana Shimura (at Shigaraki's instruction) threw herself to support the Hero System.
This, in turn, caused a societal polarization. People in favor of the new initiative were gravitating towards pro-Shimura positions. Their circumstances for support were varied - some were moved by Esuha Bridge transmissions, some had metahumans in their extended family, some were simply staunch supporters of Shimura's party, who were going to vote for it no matter what.
Others were worried about the metahumans and the threat they posed, but were constructive about it. The best way to make metahumans into not-a-threat? Make them clean their own mess by becoming heroes. Overthrowing the society looked significantly less appealing when you were working for the government in charge of the society.
Quite a lot of people had a rather politically agnostic approach to metahumans (never met one, didn't really care all that much), but figured out that it's nice to have the government actually try to fix the mess in the country.
Besides, the media close to the government were prattling regularly about the significant drop in crime stats in Musutafu ever since the introduction of superheroes. Overhaul's last stand on the Esuha Bridge being (correctly) described as a swan song of the criminal cartel that took over the entirety of Musutafu' underworld, pushed into the corner by the reorganized police force supported by the heroes.
The government was also doing its best to publicize any successful rescue operation done by the heroes in the past. Especially Singularity, Earworm and Quicksand appeared to be brought into the spotlight as a result. Precisely to show the public the benefits of the system.
As a result of that, Nana Shimura's government reached a point of no return. She couldn't suddenly attempt to dismantle the whole initiative without something massive happening (like Defiant going on a Homelander-style rampage and murdering a crowd of prople), and even if something massive like that happened, her government would be among the victims.
Because for all intents and purposes, Nana Shimura's government equalled the Hero System in the eyes of the public.
And the chances of societal order in Japan surviving the sudden collapse of Nana Shimura's government were a coin toss. And if Japan collapsed that way, All for One would have lost his control over it.
As a result, All for One was clearly doing his best to not aggravate the anti-heroes faction, despite knowing full well that his attempts to control the Heroes were going to be a failure, unless he managed to organize a situation where Defiant would be forced to resign or leave the Hero Association.
And seeing how for most of the public, Defiant currently was the Hero Association, it wasn't going to be easy.
As a result, at least temporarily Izuku Midoriya and those close to him were going to be safe. Mirai Sasaki expected the Council of Twelve to start investigating its members closely, attempt to find identities of as many of them as they could, trying to localize weak links that it could influence in order to attempt to pressure Defiant into resigning.
At the right time, when Shigaraki would decide that it doesn't endanger the existence of the Japanese Government.
This process was going to take at least months. And, to be frank, Midoriya couldn't help a lot in countering that strategy. It was something for Senior Commissioner Aizawa, Principal Sasaki or whoever was going to be involved by the PSIA in generally understood assistance to the Hero System.
Destro, once again, was unintentionally helping them. How could random PSIA officers tell agents of the MLA from those of the Council of Twelve? And with the slight paranoia that everyone was going into nowadays, it was entirely possible for someone to report something actually connected to the Council to their higher-ups (controlled by said Council), only to encounter a flat rejection - and suspect said higher-ups of being MLA moles.
And, for example, warn the target about it.
Frankly speaking, Japan was being a mess nowadays, and said mess was making it extraordinarily hard for Shigaraki to proceed with any plan. It would change a lot if he managed to control Destro and de facto unify the Council and Meta-Liberation Army, but in the meantime…
Izuku had some surprising holidays, mostly due to the fact that the world didn't know his face and he was officially treated for his injuries during the Overhaul battle in an undisclosed location.
Probably one of the last holidays in his life (his future was going to be bumpy and work-a-holic, let's be real).
To be honest, he had a lot to say about what was happening to him during said holidays. And not a lot of them were going to be positive.
Scratch that, Izuku decides, feeling the hostile stare of Mei's dad on him. Nothing here's positive. Mission abort, mission abort.
The decision to finally meet Mei's parents - by visiting their house on the outskirts of Kyoto (pretty much a small mansion) was a mistake.
"That's Tsuyu!" Mei remains completely oblivious to her boyfriend's quiet suffering. Instead she points to the frog girl (who is wearing some honestly adorable frog-themed T-Shirt, and a pair of trousers - she still wasn't a very big fan of clothes, but being clothed meant human companionship and that sold the idea) who was standing right next to her.
"Good morning, ribbit." Tsuyu, being a girl as polite as humanly possible, says, while bowing her head a little.
Mei's mom replies in kind, before giving her husband a rather tired stare. Because, yeah, her husband is still staring at their future son-in-law.
"Tsuyu is my second most favorite friend, because whenever I get sad thinking about all the communication problems I keep having, of scary supervillains out there, or Izuku fighting them and being in danger, she always…"
Tsuyu takes that moment to suddenly hug her, with a loud ribbit.
"... does this." Mei finishes her words, before hugging her back, resting her chin on the top of the frog girl's head. "Awww, aren't you the cutest? Our personal emotional support frog."
"Ribbit." Tsuyu confirms Mei's assessment. "I'm good at hugging."
Izuku can confirm. Tsuyu's hugs are the best. She's really putting in a lot of effort (and her heart), and always knows when you need one.
"Aside from her frog mutation, she also has an exceptional sense of smell, which might be a complimentary quirk." Mei then tells her parents, while still hugging Tsuyu closely. "She's basically speaking an empath, that can smell the emotions of people and she just can't stand people being sad."
"Happy people best people, ribbit." Tsuyu agrees with her… co-girlfriend? Is there such a term?
"It's probably because her biological parents were total assholes that threw her out while she was still small, and she lived alone for most of her life, in fear of other people being equal assholes." Mei then casually unleashes a bomb, making her mom blink at her in shock. Even her dad takes his eyes off Izuku for a short moment. "But it's okay now, because she found Izuku!"
"I'm no longer alone, ribbit." Tsuyu agrees with her. "I have many friends, a much better mom, two siblings and a boyfriend. Though we mostly hug and cuddle." She probably obtained enough social skills to realize that adding it while acting a little childish in general (it was mostly her still slightly limited vocalization that made her come out like that, she was extremely mature in general once you got beyond that) is a good idea. "I also go to school."
"And you already had one of your teachers adopt you, because you're the cutest and most adorable thing ever!" Mei announces with a much wider smile, hugging her (somehow) closer, Tsuyu responding with a loud ribbit of happiness. "And we all know that she is dating one of her co-workers, so you'll have a nice dad too!"
"Ribbit!" Tsuyu agrees with her happily. "But I think it's time to move over to Ochako-chan, Mei."
"Right!" Mei decides to listen to her, and points towards Ochako. Who was standing right next to Izuku. Naturally, Mei must have been still sad deep inside, because Tsuyu was still hugging her. "Mom, dad, that's Ochako! She's a rescue hero, and she is our group's voice of reason! Ochako-chan, anything reasonable to say?"
Uraraka sighs painfully.
"You should ask your dad to stop staring at Izuku…" She says, deciding to not use the Deku-kun phrase for once, explaining it would take a bit too long. "... before we all lose our boyfriend to a heart attack."
"Eh?" Mei blinks at her, before glancing at her dad. Who is clearly looking back at her, not at her boyfriend. "What do you mean?" She then looks back at Ochako. Which frees her dad to stare at Izuku again.
Kimiko Hatsume finally has enough and slaps the back of her husband's head with a rolled newspaper.
"We had a serious talk about it." She says, while glaring at her husband. "We're meeting Mei's boyfriend and her two… errr… best friends." She clearly struggles at addressing the rather peculiar relationship arrangements in question too. "So please act like a grown-up."
Mari Hatsume clearly doesn't enjoy that fact, and he grumbles something back.
"Wait, what's happening?" Mei asks, oblivious as always.
"Do you remember how fathers tended to react to their daughters' boyfriends in the films we've watched together?" Uraraka replies. "Your dad's doing that to Izuku when you aren't looking."
Mei frowns, before joining her mother in glaring at the CEO of one of the largest industrial companies in Japan. Who, this time, actually shrinks a little. It seems that Uraraka found his weak spot.
"Dad!" Mei raises her voice. "Stop scaring my boyfriend! He isn't doing very well with social anxiety, and you're probably freaking him out worse than Overhaul did! Bad dad!"
Izuku has a feeling that he shouldn't be freaking out that much, even if the man on the other side was this wealthy and influential (and hopefully not mind-controlled by the Council of Twelve, but just in case they aren't telling him anything secret). It's just…
He knows that he fucked up by avoiding this meeting for so long. Especially as he knew that Mei's dad was a tiny bit overprotective about 'his little angel'. And while Defiant could act cool in front of people, because he needed to save people, Izuku Midoriya without his mask on was…
… a bit mellow.
"Mei, there is no need to…" Mari tries to save himself.
"Bad." Mei refuses to back down and points her finger at him. "Dad."
Tsuyu relocates swiftly to give Izuku a reassuring hug.
"Stop bullying Izuku or I'll never ever speak to you again!" Mei delivers her finisher. It's super effective.
Her dad crumbles under her gaze, clearly stabbed in the back by the person he least expected to do it. It is at this point that his wife clears her throat loudly, focusing the attention of everyone in the room on her.
"I think that it might be a good moment to mention that I know exactly where Mei got her questionable social skills from." She then says loudly. "Because while he got over it while we both were young and before he got to inherit the company from his father, there is one person whose involvement makes him no longer act like a grown-up should, rolling back years of character development. Namely, his daughter."
She then sighs loudly. She looks… not even disappointed, it's like she expected things to be like that from the start.
"Honey." She says, and while her tone is calm, somehow Izuku understands once more than women are scary. "Be so kind and say to your future son-in-law what you say about him when we talk about him. C'mon."
Her husband looks back at her, then his gaze returns to Izuku. He looks defeated all of a sudden.
"We always thought that Mei was the happiest when she was tinkering with things." Mari Hatsume says, his voice that of a dead man. "We were wrong. She is clearly the happiest when she is tinkering for you. The fact that you actually made her socialize and find friends that she's clearly so happy around is a blessing." Silence, Izuku actually blinking at him in shock over Tsuyu's head. This somehow makes him snap back to his usual self. "This doesn't mean that I acknowledge you as her boyfriend!"
"Yes, it does." His wife and daughter say in unison, before looking at each other and high-fiving.
Oof. Izuku sincerely hopes that all his children will be boys, because he's already massively outnumbered in this relationship. And somehow, somehow imagining that Mei's child is a daughter and she ends up dating someone makes him weirdly irritated.
(***)
It took them a while to settle down after the… introductions. But, eventually, Izuku calmed down and managed to act more or less naturally. And so did Mei's slightly overprotective father.
Few things were a highlight of the rest of their stay at Hatsume's.
The first one was Mei managing to finish the introduction of Uraraka, including mentioning (not in detail and after asking her for permission) what happened to her in the past. Just in case their host was All for One's spy, it was just an implication of something happening to her during the war and Uraraka not being comfortable with being touched anymore. And that her parents weren't around.
They didn't want to give All for One any fuel for emotional manipulation of anyone in Izuku's vicinity.
Kimiko Hatsume was suitable horrified and all but stated her willingness to do absolutely everything to help her, especially as seeing how close she was with Mei she was basically like a sister to their daughter.
Mari Hatsume instead calmly asked for the names of peoples involved, with eyes screaming murder. Someone had a heart in the right place after all. Unfortunately (or fortunately), they were all dead, so it didn't matter anymore.
Izuku has a feeling that he scored some brownie points with Mei's parents when Uraraka mentioned how her boyfriend helped her seek professional help. And that they were waiting with doing, well, anything, for until Uraraka was going to be comfortable with it.
He also has a feeling that he heard Kimiko whisper to Mari's ear something that sounded akin to 'I'm starting to see a theme there'.
Another highlight was Mei's younger brother storming in, Izuku immediately realizing that he had more fans than just Eri. He actually ended up giving Yuji Hatsume' his autograph (only to have Uraraka tease him about Izuku having to work on his writing style).
He had no idea how to process himself being famous. And not just in Japan, apparently, but also overseas.
He preferred not to think about it. That was something that Defiant was supposed to deal with, not Izuku Midoriya. He actually signed himself down as Defiant (he didn't plan to announce his real identity to the world, so signing as Izuku Midoriya would be rather pointless), too.
In the end, they ended up spending the night in two guest rooms. Kimiko seemed to think that their struggle to figure out who was going to sleep where (and Izuku's desperate attempts to sleep on the couch, because he could feel Mari Hatsume's death stare and it was still kinda terrifying).
In the end, Mei won the day by announcing that if Izuku decides to settle on the couch, she's going to sleep on the same couch. So, he surrendered. Tsuyu naturally decided to make sure that Uraraka wasn't going to feel lonely, so it was a 2x2 deal.
That was honestly another highlight of the trip. Thankfully, Izuku managed to explain to Mei that he doesn't feel comfortable indulging in some surprisingly enthusiastic lovemaking while being consistently afraid of her father being right outside their room.
The final highlight was Izuku waking up quite late (he really needed to rest after all the nerves he lived through) and discovering that he slept through a coup d'etat.
So much about holidays.
(***)
I will elaborate, but on Monday. Lmao. In the meantime, feel free to speculate.
You can expect the plot to speed-up massively, with a lot of not even plotlines but FACTIONS finding its conclusion in the next few chapters. The first ~80 chapters of this fic was about the beginning of the Hero Society, first fights with supervillains, establishing the whole framework of the System that we know from canon and from my remaining fics. Now that everything is public AND more or less established, you can expect the conclusion of this fic approaching.
Also, not much of a character development left to cover.
The fic ends at a chapter 100, and both it and chapter 99 are pretty much epilogues :P