Author's Note: So I forgor to mention this last chapter, but I'm making it so that Tartarus is a flying fortress in this fic because I think that's cooler. Anyway, this one is still a bit of setup before we start the action in Arc 4. We'll be getting to some action quick, though. So not much more wait!

Also, if you want to get into a place with other lovers of MHA, and specifically IzuJirou stuff, come on and join this Discord server that I'm on:

/eFtmT8cTbY

We're only kind of crazy, and not at all a cult... except, we also kind of are. Anyway, yeah, join that!

Or maybe you want something a bit less niche with still a lot of great authors? If so, I have another server!

/6ZCTyGy7zZ

I hope you enjoy this chapter! It's cross-posted on Ao3 as well. Leave a review if you want to. I welcome the feedback! See you next time.

Enji was feeling weird. That wasn't something that happened very frequently at all. All Might's last fight with the villain known as All For One really seemed to take a lot out of him, especially since he hadn't made any public hero appearances since then. There were rumors of his retirement soon. He had been going for a long time, that's for sure.

"But that's not the point." He growled to himself. He could feel his fire growing hotter as his anger seethed. "I'm supposed to pass him to get to number one, not get it by him stepping down…" Even now, All Might was probably laughing at him as he didn't earn the number one spot.

As much as Enji loathed to say it, his dream was really up to Shouto now. Of course, having his lineage take up the number one spot by his own power and merit is the ultimate end goal, but it was always a fallback. Enji wanted to accomplish it for himself if he could.

His mind did wander to Shouto temporarily. He was irritated again in part because Shouto should be joining him for his work study, and yet he wasn't here. So what was he up to?


"So… you and Hatsu-… You and Mei. You're together?" Shouto asked Hitoshi.

"Yep." Hitoshi said simply.

"And then Izuku and Kyouka are also together?"

"Yeah. They started dating shortly after we started being vigilantes." Hitoshi explained.

"Now what about those two?" Shouto asked, pointing to Himiko and Fumikage, who were currently engaged in a very competitive game of Jenga.

"I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea what's going on with either of them most of the time." Hitoshi said with a sigh.

"Shit!" Himiko yelled as the tower fell because of her.

Fumikage sat back in his chair in victory. "Skill Issue."

Himiko leaped over the table and grabbed him by the throat. They wrestled around on the ground for close to a minute before they both simply stood up, righted the chairs, and remade the Jenga tower, starting over.

"What just happened?" Shouto asked.

"That is one of many reasons why I have no idea what's going on with them for the most part." Hitoshi said.

"So what do you do around here?" Shouto asked, trying to make small talk.

"I mostly help Mei with her inventions. And then sometimes I help Izuku with his information gathering. My quirk helps with that." Hitoshi explained.

"So then I wonder what I should do." Shouto thought aloud.

"I mean, you can make some ice cubes for my water cup." Hitoshi said, spinning around in the chair he was sitting in. Shouto said nothing. He simply reached forward with his right hand and froze the water cup solid. "That's… not what I meant, but… Alright…" Hitoshi slowly pulled the now frozen cup of water back towards him. Shouto just smirked.

"That was pretty funny, Shouto." Izuku said as he walked out of the hallway. "But to answer your question, I'm not sure yet. It's your second day here."

"Hey." Himiko guarded the Jenga tower as Izuku passed. "None of that bullshit." Shouto raised an eyebrow.

"Whaaaaat?" Izuku asked, giving Himiko and Fumikage a cheeky smile.

"None. Of. That. Bullshit." Himiko repeated.

"And so what's that about?" Shouto asked.

"Now, that is something that I do understand. We don't allow Izuku to play any games with us that have an ounce of chance to them."

"So what's the reason for that?" He asked again.

"So Izuku technically told the truth in the training, but not the entire truth. He does have Analysis, but that isn't his only quirk."

"More than one quirk? How?"

"My father gave me Analysis. I was born with a different quirk." Izuku explained.

"I see… So why do you not let him play?"

Hitoshi smiled widely. "Why don't you see for yourself?"

"Don't I get to know what his quirk is first?" Shouto asked.

Izuku smiled. "Nope." He pulled out a deck of cards from who knows where and set them down on the table.

Himiko and Fumikage quickly finished their game of Jenga with Himiko winning this time, before quickly putting it away and watching with eager anticipation. Izuku simply began shuffling the cards casually.

"Your excitement scares me." Shouto said as he looked at an almost quite literally bouncing Himiko.

"It's not me that you should be scared of here." Himiko said. "It's him." She pointed at Izuku. "Kyouka! Your boyfriend is about to kick some ass in a card game!" She yelled down the hallway.

Kyouka soon came storming out of the hallway. "I thought we agreed that we wouldn't have anymore of his bullshit with card games!"

"No no, it's with him." Himiko pointed at Shouto who looked like a deer in headlights.

"Oh… OH…" Kyouka realized what was going on, and then she started laughing. Madly. "Kick his ass, Izu!" She pulled up a chair next to him.

"Gladly." Izuku shuffled the cards and dealt a single card to both himself and to Shouto. "We're playing Blackjack. Go ahead." Izuku said.

Shouto then proceeded to lose five times in a row with Izuku getting to exactly 21.

"Okay, that's…" He sighed out of frustration. "We should play a different game!" Shouto exclaimed.

"Alright. Choose, then." Izuku said.

"Uno!" He responded. Two games later, Shouto had continued his losing streak. "Go Fish!" He then changed the game. And he once again lost. "Fine! Y'know what? Rock. Paper. Scissors. You and me. Right now."

Izuku chuckled to himself. "Alright. If you still want to." They lined up their hands, and Izuku activated his quirk. He saw Shouto's probabilities:

Throws Rock: 65%

Throws Paper 15%
Throws Scissors: 20%

So he did what he saw as the most possible outcome. He threw paper to Shouto's rock.

"Argh!" Shouto yelled out in frustration. "What is your quirk?!"

"It's called Luck." Izuku said.

Shouto said nothing, but he inhaled deeply before shakily exhaling. "Of course it is. Of COURSE his quirk is Luck. It all makes so much sense now. Why didn't you tell me beforehand?" He looked at Hitoshi who was stifling his laughter.

"It's your hazing. Your initiation." Mei said as she finally turned around in her chair.

"Fuck yeah, that was great." Kyouka said. She quickly hugged Izuku's side and kissed his cheek. "Good job, Izu."

"Thanks, Kyo." He smiled.

A small ding echoed from Mei's machines. "Oh!" Mei exclaimed. "The next batch is done!"

"Batch?" Kyouka asked. "Batch of what?" Everyone immediately got up from around the table and huddled around her work station.

"So after doing the things with Eraserhead, Midnight, and Presentation Michael's quirks, I decided to do a bit of analysis on All For One's blood." Mei explained, pointing to what looked like a centrifuge. "Dude has hundreds, if not thousands of quirks that he can use. It's gonna take some time to narrow down which one is Bakugo's. But I managed to extract one quirk at random from his blood along with some quirks from the people in the hero course. I'm putting them all in syringe vials for now until we think of a good use for them." She grabbed a piece of the quirk centrifuge and pulled out all five of the vials in one go, quickly transferring them into other containers.

"Which ones did you extract?" Izuku asked.

"Well, if my analysis is correct, the one that is extracted from a bit of All For One's blood is called 'Berserk'." She said, taking out some tape and a marker. She wrote down the name of the quirk before turning back to her teammates. "It basically makes whoever it's used on go into a blind rage, mercilessly attacking the target of it until they don't exist anymore. Nasty side effects for being affected by it. Muscle fatigue is one of the worst parts."

"That sounds like an interesting one for sure." Himiko said. "It would probably be useful for an up-front combat fighter. But they'd have to have someone back them up when the effect ends."

"I agree." Mei said. "Now, I'm putting these in syringes because we don't have a use for them yet. If my hypothesis is correct, injecting the quirk into yourself with the syringe will give you that quirk. But be careful! If you try to implant a second quirk into a body that already has a quirk, there can be serious harmful side effects that the user can and probably will face. If severe enough, even death…" Most people gulped at that. "Well, aside from Izuku apparently. With his 'pure blood of the quirk overlord' or some shit like that. 'Perfect Vessel' lookin' ass."

"Hey, I can't control who my dad is." Izuku defended.

"Why not? Your quirk is busted enough for it. Don't you think that with enough power, you could warp reality with it?" Mei taunted back.

"I can only affect things that already have a chance to happen anyway." Izuku said.

"Fine, fine. But you'll probably get there eventually." Mei resigned. "Anyway." She rebounded quickly. "I figured that a grab bag out of All For One was fair enough. And then I took four quirks from the hero course students. The first one was obviously Creation because it's so versatile and can help me make more babies!" She seemed incredibly giddy about that one in particular. "And because I have these as a base, I can use Creation to make more of this quirk… serum? I guess that's the right word for it?" She thought to herself for a second before going back to her rambling. "And then I got 'Mushroom' from the mushroom girl, 'Twin Impact' from that one guy, and then 'Poltergeist' from that kinda spooky girl that didn't talk very much. But she did explode you guys. Or at least, she tried to." Mei said.

"Yeah, but she took herself down with her recklessness." Kyouka said.

"Eh, true." Mei said. "But moving things with your mind is bound to be useful at some point. Oh well, into storage you go for now. Izuku!" She turned around quickly and pointed at Izuku. "Are there any other quirks from the hero students that you want me to start extracting next?"

"Hmmmm… I'm assuming you can only do five at a time?" Izuku asked.

"Yeah, my baby can't hold too much at a time." Mei said.

"Invisibility is useful, especially for someone like Hitoshi, Himiko, and Kyouka. Granted, Hitoshi does have the cloaking cloak… Eh, still, go for that one for sure. How many more quirks do you think you can get out of my dad's blood?"

"Probably another two or three? Not too many." Mei estimated.

"Hmmm… Get another random quirk from him, and then take your pick from the hero course students for the next three." Izuku instructed.

"I'll get that started up, and then there's more information that I need to give all of you." Mei said, taking blood from each of Himiko's vials and placing them into other, smaller vials, and then into the centrifuge-esque machine. Then she turned around again to face the group. "Now, you're gonna be happy with this one. I have a new lead for us."

That perked everyone up, especially Shouto. "I'm ready." He clenched his fist in determination.

"Glad to hear it." Izuku said. "Now, what have you got?"

"This is for the original members of us. Do you remember one of our first missions? When we found the bullets and the guns?" Mei asked.

"Yep. We still haven't used them, though." Hitoshi said.

"Well, I've found details about another meetup of the people that are selling these bullets and guns." Mei said. "They seem to be having another deal going on." She slid directly into her computer chair and began typing. "Hmmm… According to Prometheus, there's been a lot of these deals going on while we've been busy."

"And how does Prometheus know about these things?" Izuku asked. Immediately, a small ding sounded from Mei's computer.

"I thought we had gotten over this part of our relationship where you constantly doubted me." The message said.

"Oh come on, you know it's not like that. I just wanted to know so that we could start looking for stuff that way too." Izuku defended.

"If you must know, I monitor a lot of police chatter and have rather advanced triangulation devices." Another message said.

"That's… Yeah, I have no idea." Hitoshi said.

"And I also am on a completely different level when it comes to this stuff than you are. Mei is good with engineering, biology, and design, but when it comes to matters in IT and telecommunications, I take the cake." Another message said.

"Hey, I'm learning!" Mei defended.

"I meant no offense. I just wanted to display the fact that I will gladly be your intelligence operative and monitor such things to provide you with more mission information should I find any."

"Well… Thank you for that." Izuku said. "I'm sorry that we have to rely on you for something like that. You've helped us a lot. What can we do to make it up to you?"

"Just let me keep doing this. This is super fun for me."

"Huh." Izuku said. "Well, if you enjoy it, then… keep up the good work." Izuku said. With no response, he spoke again. "What's the information for the next meeting that these arms dealers are participating in?"

"It looks like there's one tomorrow night." Prometheus responded. "It's located… Rather near your location. Strange."

"Where near us?" Kyouka asked.

"Like… a few blocks from your warehouse."

"Well shit." Hitoshi said. "That is close."

"Hold on a second…" Prometheus sent the message. The icon for the fact that she was typing showed up and didn't go away for almost a minute. "Alright, so I looked into them, and they're from this thing called the Shie Hassaikai. Looks like an old Yakuza group that's started becoming more active again."

"The Shie Hassaikai…" Izuku said. "They're the ones with the quirk nullifying bullets…?"

"If they're the same group as before, then it seems so." Kyouka said.

"Hold on, quirk nullifying bullets?" Shouto asked. "What are those?"

"On our first mission as a group, we stopped some arms dealers. They had these syringe bullets and specialized guns for them." Mei said. "After some analysis, we discovered the nature of the bullets… They will temporarily nullify a person's quirk for a few hours." Her face went grim. "And they also…" She strained for a second. "They are able to do that because of… because of the blood of a young girl…"

"The blood of a young girl?" Shouto repeated.

"Through DNA phenotyping, we're able to tell that she is at a young age. Probably six or seven years old. White hair. Her quirk's physical trait seems to be a horn." Mei explained.

"You're able to tell that much from a person's DNA?" Shouto asked.

"Bitch, please. I can extract people's quirks from their blood. You can tell a lot from someone's DNA. You can assign different characteristics based on which genes someone has. This is called Phenotyping or Molecular Photofitting. Phenotypes are the physical manifestation of someone's DNA in their body. That gives the hair color. The condition of the DNA equates towards a young age. The DNA slowly decomposes throughout a person's life as the replication slowly becomes more and more imperfect." Mei explained. Hitoshi was on the edge of his seat watching her talk.

"That's crazy…" Shouto said quietly. "So whoever these guys are, they're using the blood of this little girl?"

"That's what it seems like." Izuku said. "So whenever we go to check this place out, keep an eye out for the girl. Stay vigilant for her. Even though the likelihood of finding her in just some random arms deal is unlikely, keep that mental image in your mind. Always be ready to act. If it is abuse that she's dealing with, saving her is the top priority if you run into her. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" Everyone but Shouto responded at the same time.

"Uh… Yes, sir." Shouto said a few seconds later.

"Good. Now, we won't have anything to do until tomorrow night. Get some rest before we head out. Shouto, this'll be your first mission with us. I'd recommend staying back a bit until you understand how we operate, but if you wanna go for it full throttle, I don't think I can stop you."

"I would like to join immediately if I can." Shouto said.

"Alright." Izuku said. "If that's what you wanna do, make sure that you aren't going to get in the way of what we're doing and how we fight."

"I'll try not to." Shouto nodded.

"Good." Izuku nodded in response. Without saying anything else, he walked over to Kyouka, picked her up in a bridal carry, and walked over to the couch in front of the TV. He sat down and then placed her on his lap. He turned the TV on shortly after.

Shouto was so confused as to what just happened. They must be very comfortable with each other to be able to do that around their friends. He wondered if he would ever be that comfortable around people. He supposed that eventually, he could find a way to do that. His upbringing didn't help much with interpersonal interaction. Perhaps he'd grow in more ways than just as a fighter.

Perhaps.


Shouto's back hit the mat with a hard impact.

"Come on, Shouto. You've never done quirkless sparring before?" Izuku asked. "We've got your first mission tonight. Can't have you slacking." He bounced on the balls of his feet.

"Remind me why we have to spar quirkless." Shout groaned, picking himself up from the ground.

"Because while we use our quirks to help us in our fights, we can't just rely on them. Not for our goal. If you get disarmed or you're facing Eraserhead, what will you do then? Or, God forbid, you're hit with one of the quirk nullifying bullets. What then?" Izuku asked.

"I'm… not sure…" Shouto said. "I've never thought about that."

"That's why Eraserhead is so effective. Most people with quirks don't know how to fight without them." Izuku walked to him, extending his hand. He pulled Shouto up to standing. "This is kind of on me, too. I haven't been prioritizing training as a group very much recently." He turned towards the rest of the warehouse, and his voice rose in volume as he continued to speak. "That's why every other day from here on out, we'll have at least a two hour training session for everyone." There was a collective groan from almost everyone in the warehouse as he said that. "I'll go out and buy some more training equipment later when I go grocery shopping with Kyouka." Izuku turned back to Shouto. "You can rest for a bit. I'm gonna shower, and then Kyouka and I are gonna go shopping. We'll be back."

And with that, Izuku walked away towards the shower, leaving Shouto to his own devices.

"He's right…" He thought to himself. "I've been putting so much thought into my quirk and my quirk alone…There's so much more that I have to learn… How will I fight? How will I improve?" Shout clenched his fist, steeling his own resolve. "Whatever it takes to improve, I will do it. I'm not going to stay in my father's shadow. I am the newest member of Societas Requiem: Dragon."