Izuku flopped onto his bed, exhausted from having talked with Ochako alone for so long. He hadn't had to deal with other people in any serious manner for a number of years now, and not only had talking to Ochako been nerve-wracking enough as is. It had also been at times uncomfortable, her questions hadn't been her fault of course, but asking him about what kind of quirk he had and his past employment always brought dark and sad thoughts to his mind.

Izuku looked over to his bedside table where two photos had been propped up. One was of his mother, the other was of Naomasa and himself. He reached over and picked up the photo of Naomasa and himself. The decision to pursue criminal justice as a police officer had been the start of everything for him. He couldn't join at 15 years of age of course, but society had changed a lot since the birth of quirks and there were ways of pursuing that kind of career without having to first be 18 years of age. The Master-Apprentice method of teaching had come back into existence after the birth of quirks. With society in chaos, it became very useful to take people under one's wing and train them over many years into an excellent successor. This same system even spread to the police system, though it was uncommon at best.


Izuku had managed to impress Naomasa and factor in the information he knew about All Might, things weren't so simple anymore. Naomasa had taken him as a "junior officer in-training". He attended a local high school to earn take some basic classes, but his curriculum was altered to accommodate training under Naomasa. He attended High School three days a week and worked under Naomasa for the other three. It meant he had to put in considerable time to make sure he didn't fall behind in school, but it was worth every second.

His normal high school days went about as well as he expected but his tutelage under Naomasa more than made up for the lackluster high school experience. During regular high school, he took some criminal justice classes that were slightly above his grade level but he enjoyed them and put in 110% percent. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were the days he worked under Naomasa and he learned more specific information. He worked in the office on Thursdays and this was to acclimate him to the more mundane aspects of police work. Fridays were days that Naomasa trained him on detective skills of all kinds, while Saturdays tended to be more hands-on. Naomasa worked alongside heroes a lot and so got into just as many scraps as they did. Naomasa wanted to ensure that Izuku could defend himself if the time came and so Saturdays were devoted to self-defense, basic melee weapon training, and firearms training.

Izuku enjoyed his detective tutelage and self-defense classes most of all, he felt they were the skills that would help him most in achieving his dream. So, he devoted himself in mind, body, and soul to the tasks. He even took up extracurricular classes at the high school and extra training at gyms and dojos to help further develop his skills. His hand-to-hand skills were top-notch by Naomasa's standards but in exchange, his weapon skills lagged behind. That wasn't to say he was bad, but he just couldn't give the same level of enthusiasm to those as he could other topics.

Izuku sighed, no matter how often he did it, he just couldn't get used to the feeling of a gun. All things considered; most criminals didn't use them nor did the police really. Quirks had caused a resurgence of the melee arts as they were oftentimes more adaptable to quirks than firearms were.

He looked at the Glock G19X G5 in his hands and set it down at the table. Tsukauchi had insisted he familiarize himself with the specific names and intricacies of the most common firearm variants available. The more he knew about the most common firearm types, the more well equipped he would be to deal with them in the future. So here he was learning how to take a standard 9mm pistol apart and put it back together. Naomasa had said, "Until you can take that gun apart and put it back together blindfolded and, in your sleep, we won't progress any further."

Naomasa looked up from his desk at Izuku at the sound of the gun being set down. He could feel for the boy, it had taken him a long time to get used to having a gun. When he had finally gotten used to it though, it had become one of his most valued assets outside of his combat gloves for close-quarters combat. True he didn't use either often, he was mostly a detective but he had been in a fair number of fights and his gun skills had saved his life more than once.

He got up from his desk and walked over to Izuku and put a hand on his shoulder, "I think that's enough of taking it apart, let's get some sparring in before you have to head back."

Izuku immediately brightened up at that and hopped to his feet. "Yes sir!" he said and headed off to the sparring room.

Naomasa gave a light chuckle and headed in after him. He had to admit that Izuku's talents lay with hand-to-hand combat, and it wouldn't hurt to indulge that talent every now and again.

A few minutes later they were standing on either end of the mat. They gave a bow to each other then they launched towards each other.

Izuku opened with a quick jab from his left which Naomasa casually deflected, then Izuku spun into Naomasa ducking as he did, and tried to sweep Naomasa's legs. Naomasa evaded the sweep with a quick hop and then tried a quick flick with his right foot in an attempt to disorient Izuku. Izuku however used his left leg and pushed forward, diving headlong into Naomasa's chest and tackling him to the ground. Naomasa didn't miss a beat though, and even as he fell backward, he pulled his knee up and into Izuku's gut, disrupting any further attempts to capitalize on the tackle. Izuku though winded slightly from the gut hit, used that hit to help propel himself over Naomasa's head and back to a safe distance putting the bout back to neutral.

Naomasa got to his feet and they both took a moment to catch their breath. Then they started to circle each other slowly, but while circling they steadily closed the distance between themselves. This time, Naomasa took the initiative and stepped forward. He opened by attempting to immobilize Izuku's arms with a grab maneuver, while also sidestepping his leg between Izuku's and using the grab as a feint, rammed his shoulder into Izuku. Izuku stumbled backward and tried to maintain his balance even as Naomasa came in fast, launching a flurry of blows and overwhelming Izuku by his sheer ferocity and speed.

Barely two and a half minutes after the bout had started, it ended. Izuku lay on the ground panting as Naomasa stood above him breathing a tad heavily but clearly nowhere near as strained as Izuku.

"You did well, your quick thinking in launching a tackle after your failed leg sweep was good and would allow you to quickly regain the initiative. Keep working on ideas like that and you'll do very well in any sort of unarmed combat you find yourself in." Said Naomasa as he extended his hand to Izuku.

Izuku took his hand and with Naomasa's help got back on his feet. He was sore all over but he felt great, he'd managed to keep the initiative for a while and even managed to impress Naomasa.

"It's all thanks to your guidance, I never would have been able to come this far if I didn't have you as a teacher," said Izuku, giving his sensei a bow.

"Don't count out your own hard work and effort, through your hard work and keen mind you've taken to my teaching quickly and-" Naomasa suddenly broke off and launched himself at Izuku.

Izuku, not expecting a surprise attack was tackled to the ground, he was about to try and break the grapple when the side of the building exploded.

Izuku had been expecting a flash of heat or debris flying everywhere, but nothing seemed to happen apart from the initial sound and some crumbling wood and concrete sounds. He glanced over and realized that it hadn't been an explosion at all. Instead, a section of a building had fallen through the roof and into the office cluster next door. Good thing they were the only ones in the office today, Naomasa had had some late-night reports to work on.

Naomasa got off Izuku and helped him up, then he dashed over to the hole in the building and started to climb on top of the massive piece of rubble that had come flying into the building. Izuku followed and as he crested the top of the building piece, he heard Naomasa say "What the hell happened...?" shock evident in his voice.

Izuku looked out to the portion of the city to the north and saw a massive pillar of smoke and dust rising from the ruins of buildings now decidedly missing. As he watched he saw a massive shock wave and explosion. Except that the explosion seemed to get stopped by some barrier he couldn't see and get sent to the left and right of whatever stopped it. The resulting smoke made seeing anything impossible, and a few more shockwaves followed. Then there was a boom that Izuku felt even from his current distance and then a giant whirlwind formed over by the battle zone, pieces of buildings and other debris were thrown everywhere and he could see a helicopter in the sky above the battle sway and wobble as the pilot struggled to maintain control in the sudden turbulence. Izuku jumped when Naomasa suddenly appeared to his left, climbing back on top of the building chunk. He hadn't even noticed him leaving, he was so engrossed in the battle in the distance. As he got closer Izuku noticed a radio in his hand and the garbled voice of the broadcaster started to come through as Naomasa reached him.

"All Might's done it! He's killed the villain; he's saved us all again! He...! He..." The radio fell silent suddenly. And Izuku felt a cold hand grab his heart.

"Oh my god... no... he... All Might... he... oh my god he's dead... All Might's dea-" the radio suddenly cut out into static.

Izuku stood there staring at the small box. He felt numb, the impossible had happened, All Might, The Symbol of Peace, had died.


Naomasa was worried about Izuku. Since All Might's death a few weeks ago, he'd been getting steadily more jumpy and aggressive. He'd also heard that he had been putting in extreme amounts of time in his physical training regimen. His dedication to learning gunplay had also increased, positively flying through every new challenge Naomasa had thrown at him. So much so that he had been forced to cut back on the curriculum he had prepared for Izuku.

The aggression however was the really concerning part, he'd been hurting himself during practice on sandbags and in bouts with Naomasa. More than once he had seen Izuku walking around with bandaged hands, a dark mood, and bags under this eyes. He was neglecting sleep in favor of more training.

At the moment Naomasa was just filling out reports on some events that had cropped up in the past few weeks at the behest of Nezu to present to the H.A. Nezu had had many of his associates and contacts submit reports to Naomasa about the current events following the death of All Might and what they should expect in the future. He also knew that Nezu had begun drawing up contingencies and plans to put into effect should the worst occur.

He was putting the finishing touches on his rather lengthy report when his cellphone rang. He glanced at the contact info and screen and saw that it was Nezu calling him. Something big must have happened to have him calling Naomasa at 11:00 PM.

He pressed the answer button and switched to speaker mode so he could continue to wrap up his report. "Naomasa speaking" came his habitual answer.

"There's been an incident, The Liberation Army just launched a major offensive. They've already taken all of Deika City under their control."

Naomasa just stared at the phone as the ridiculous of the statement sank in, "They've taken the heroes and government workers hostage?" He asked.

"Worse, they were part of the group, to begin with. We still don't know the identity of their leader but it would appear this has been in the works for a long time. So far we don't know the extent of their control over the city and its populace, but we fear a major part of the population could be in league with them. We have some captured members locked up and we need your quirk and interrogation techniques to get as much out of them as we can." Said Nezu.

It was lucky Naomasa had a lot of experience, any other normal cop would have been overwhelmed by the sheer absurdity of it all. "I understand, I'll make my way over within the hour." He said.

"I fear, that we have come to a tipping point. Something even bigger is going to come next." Said Nezu grimly.

"And we will be ready for it." Said Naomasa just as grimly.

"I sincerely hope we will be," said Nezu, as he hung up.

Naomasa leaned over his desk and put his face in his hands and just massaged it for a few seconds.

"Could really use your help about now..." he muttered softly to himself thinking about All Might.

"Um, Mr. Tsukauchi?" Said a voice from in front of him.

Naomasa looked up to see Izuku standing in the door, looking anxious, chewing on his lip, the bags under his eyes evident. Naomasa also noted the shaking in the hand not holding onto the doorframe.

"Yes Midoriya, what is it?" He asked.

Izuku was silent for a while as if he was waging some kind of internal battle with himself. He seemed to come to a decision, however and took a steadying breath. His shaking stopped and he straightened up. When he looked at Naomasa next it was with a newfound resolve.

"I... I've decided to join the Quirk Suppression Unit." He said with a slight stammer.

Naomasa felt a headache coming on and he put a hand over his eyes and began to massage his temples.

"That's not a decision you should make lightly Midoriya. It's not a pleasant organization, you'll be worked to your breaking point and possibly even beyond given the current climate. I know that they've been extending offers to people like you, but please try and think about your doing. I cannot stress enough how much of a bad idea it is, I do not think you are suited to that kind of work. All Might thought you would best be served by joining the police and I have to agree." He said, hoping to turn Midoriya off of this ill-considered choice.

"All Might's dead, he was murdered by villains. I can't stop that sort of thing from happening if the only thing I learn how to do is stopping petty criminals. I'm going to join sir." He said with a mild snap to his voice.

"Please Midoriya, that line of work is highly dangerous. Especially for someone like you who doesn't have a quirk to fall back on if things go south during a mission. What would I say to your mother if you went and got yourself killed trying to fight some villain like Stain or Shigaraki? How could I begin to explain that to her? The news might even kill her. Please Midoriya, think about what you're saying." He pleaded with Izuku.

Izuku flinched at the remark about his mother and for a moment, Naomasa dared hope that he had gotten through to him. Then the resolve reasserted himself and stood up straighter.

"By joining them I'll be able to protect everyone just like a hero. Even if I can't be one I can still act like one, and I'll start by really learning how to take down a villain." Said Izuku, a dark fire in his eyes as he said it. Izuku stood there a moment more before turning and leaving the office. Leaving Naomasa feeling miserable and angry.