WE GOT A TV TROPES PAGE FOR THIS FIC! So, naturally, a BONUS RELEASE IS HERE :D
(***)
Gamer71796 - True! I love hearing people's theories regarding her quirk, especially as no one truly and fully nailed it thus far :D
AdrianVnz - Guess what, sudden wild TV Tropes page is here :D Denki is a potential counter to Permeation under those circumstances, yeah. As for weapons, the problem with Lemillion is that he can only have some fabric on him (made from his own hair) or it won't permeate with him. This is a notable weakness that makes equipping him hard. Worst of all, whatever equipment would be made for him wouldn't be 'properly' hard.
TheGreatBubbaJ - Because he no longer coughs out blood - he was healed few weeks ago.
PokeKing Charizard - I really don't think that this Izuku is really THIS hostile to Sir Nighteye. I would say that in a way Izuku is growing up to a fusion of All Might and Sir Nighteye. He is an overbearing power of pureness when out there, fighting, but he is more than capable of doing shady stuff when needed.
Detrametal - That is, in a way, the point of my writing :v to make you expect X and then deny all expectations.
(***)
All Might has to admit that their new temporary home on the UA grounds is quite homely. Not as much as their actual home, but certainly more than his luxurious apartment at the highest level of the Might Tower.
Damn, he wasn't there in months, now that he thinks about it. He doesn't miss it in the slightest. The biggest positive of that location was how defensible it was. It was a wartime base, not a home, even if it was, as stated, luxurious.
Izuku was at school. Asa vanished mysteriously, and All Might was 99% sure that he put himself under Imperceptible state and was following his older brother around like a stray puppy. Inko took Aiko to Recovery Girl, due to some minor dental treatment that she had to go through.
(Aiko's attempts to escape ended in failure. No one escapes Inko Midoriya. Although, in all honesty, Aiko was only putting in a rote effort, despite her clear fear of dentists. All Might is secretly proud of it.)
Since All Might still had three hours left until his next class, he was left with Eri. At home.
They were playing around. He was 'pretending' to be All Might, while she was his faithful sidekick, Horn Might. Together they coursed through the apartment, surprising all manner of untidiness that has managed to sneak into their home, with their large ham announcements and cleaning implements.
Her constant smile really warmed his heart. He was catching up with all the things that he wasn't allowed to during his tenure as the Symbol of Peace. And he was catching up with them real hard.
That's when he suddenly heard something from the corridor outside of their apartment. He gestures at Eri to wait for a moment and then he walks towards the entrance door to check what was happening there.
That's when he suddenly received a text message on his phone. He pulled it out, expecting his son or Sir Nighteye to want something from him. But no. It was an unknown number.
Do not open. PLF sent someone to take Eri.
It was impossible. PLF couldn't have infiltrated the UA so deeply to do something like this. Not with all the added security measures. But then he heard a familiar sound.
Someone was trying to pick the lock. And that was a clear sign that something was deeply, deeply wrong.
He turned his back on the door, sent a message to Nedzu (it didn't go through, someone was jamming the signal, but how did the warning reach him?), grabbed Eri - deeply worried now that she saw the look on his face - and quickly moved into his bedroom.
"Daddy, what's happening?" She asked him once they got there. Her voice was hushed. She realized that something was wrong.
"Bad people are coming." He replies, while looking through the locker. He was prepared, but how much it was going to help him remained to be seen. It all depends on whom the PLF sent for them.
He started to take things out of it, putting it one by one on the desk. He doesn't know how much time they have. So he has to hurry.
She realizes what it is about immediately.
"Is… is it Overhaul?" She asks. On her face, fear. Her voice, weak. She has mostly put him behind, but… wounds this serious do not fade that quickly.
"He isn't taking you back, Eri." All Might smiles at her. Oh, how happy he is that he is recovering so quickly. He isn't at the level of himself from before the One for All, but he is now of a healthy build. This will help a lot. "Why? For I am here!"
They still didn't get through the entrance door. But it's only a matter of time. The door isn't exactly super secure. No one expected the UA to get infiltrated so deeply. At least they didn't blow it up, so they are clearly trying to do it quietly.
He will make it happen all but quietly.
Eri is reassured. But only so slightly.
"But… you don't have your quirk!" She replies. Toshinori smiles at her again.
"Let me share a secret with you." He says. "When I was in the US, I was allowed to train with members of a certain ancient order of warriors and protectors. They taught me how to fight, even without my quirk. They never needed those to kick bad guys' asses. And neither do I. So everything will be alright, Eri."
Her eyes are beaming at him now. She must have decided that her daddy is even cooler than she thought earlier.
"What's the name of that order?" She asks. He can hear the entrance door finally getting opened by whoever Overhaul sent after them.
"United States Marine Corps." All Might replies calmly while loading the magazine to the assault rifle. "Be a sweetie and hand me the spare mags when I'll ask, Horn Might."
Oh, he is ready to kill to protect that smile.
(***)
Tsukauchi looks so incredibly done with his life. He and Eraserhead appear to be the only even relatively sane people in the general vicinity of the Midoriyas' family. And this fact is slowly but inevitably eroding their sanity. And, probably, their will to live.
Now, this.
"All Might." He pinches the bridge of his nose, while Sansa and a few other police officers are busy hauling Moonfish and Magne to the car. Both villains look utterly traumatized, even the serial killer slash cannibal Moonfish. "Why?"
"They wanted to kidnap my daughter." All Might replies. He seems proud of himself. Eri is right next to him, beaming at them both. Especially at her father, who was probably promoted to the rank of her Number One Hero, ex acqueo with her oldest brother.
"I was asking about this." He points out towards the mess that used to be the front wall of the apartment building. There are holes there now. A lot of them. Hundreds of them. Certainly way more than needed to keep the two villains at bay until reinforcements arrived.
All Might actually shrinks a little.
"I, uhm, might have gotten a bit too enthusiastic with the present I got from Star and Stripe for my last birthday." He says. Tsukauchi decides that he needs more coffee to deal with this. And a strong one. Or perhaps he should ask Recovery Girl for a caffeine drip?
"What was that present?" He asks. Somehow he knows that he won't like the answer to his question.
"Antique M249 light machine gun. From before the Dawn of Quirks." All Might replies and Tsukauchi corrects himself. He needs A LOT more coffee to deal with this. "And… uhm… maybe a few frag grenades?"
Eri is holding one in her hands. It's a training one. Non-explosive. All Might announced that right after Tsukauchi arrived. She is holding it like a favourite plushie. Tsukauchi has a lot of questions but he is acutely aware that he wants none of the answers.
She is also wearing a US Army helmet, tailored to fit her horn. Tsukauchi doesn't know why All Might actually had it in his house. This is also one more thing that he really doesn't want to know.
"I'll ask you one question, Yagi." Tsukauchi sighs. "Did you actually obtain a permit for any of the weapons you used in that fight?"
All Might's sudden shrinking (how is he doing it so well, he was healed from his injuries!) is enough of an answer.
"Yagi." Tsukauchi actually face palms at this. "We had that talk after your last incident. You are no longer the Symbol of Peace. I can't keep hiding stuff like this forever."
"I told you, the last time was an accid…" All Might tries to interject, but Tsukauchi doesn't let him.
"Yagi." He says, and Toshinori obediently stops talking. "I ran into you, dead drunk, singing really nasty songs about the HPSC' president. On the street. At 3am. With Stain, Mr. Compress and, and I have no idea how you did it since she is supposed to be dead, Lady Nagant. All of them just as wasted as you were. And you were wearing one of All for One's business suits."
The last bit somehow stings the most. Then again, that's one way of kicking the dead supervillain in the metaphorical face. All for One would probably have a brain aneurysm if he was alive and found out what happened.
All Might keeps shrinking. Tsukauchi's newly awakened desire to see the world burn makes him feel an intense pleasure at this sight.
"Well, Izuku just got his provisional license exam, and we decided to celebrate it and… uhm… things got a bit out of hand." All Might eventually says. Tsukauchi starts wondering if he can somehow get away with killing the former Number One Hero right here and right now. It will be a service to society, really!
Does All Might have any idea how hard it was for Tsukauchi to persuade the police officers that were called to silence the drunks interrupting people's sleep that they ran into a group of cosplayers? Because of course the other idiots were wearing their villain uniforms.
He ended up watching the police officers write out tickets to three supervillains and the former greatest hero of them all. For public impersonation of villains. He really isn't paid enough to do this.
Making them not carry those four idiots to the sobering-up station was an even harder battle.
(the fact that they all actually paid the fines once they sobered up surprises him to no ends)
"I didn't even get to ask you back then…" All Might was way too drunk to offer a cohesive response. "... but what on Earth was Lady Nagant doing there?"
It's not like he wants to know. It's all Serious Nedzu Business™. Tsukauchi is simply a detective in the local police force. He has contacts, but he is essentially orphaned ever since the war against All for One ended.
But he has to know what sort of madness he can expect to happen in his neighbourhood. Especially as a certain family is doing its best to multiply it.
Most of what he does recently (outside of regular, police work) is helping cover the former Symbol of Peace's peculiar family situation. This is what's slowly driving him more insane. And deeper into caffeine addiction.
"Well, she was apparently hired by All for One as a bodyguard for his family together with Stain." All Might replies. "She left after he died, but she's still close with my wife. And a member of her cooking club. She got invited by Inko to stay for a few days. Also, she apparently decided to lay low for a while and, uhm, got married. So she is technically a retired supervillain."
Tsukauchi stares at him in silence. All Might has enough social awareness to realize what it is about.
"Knuckleduster." All Might eventually admits. "They both really love guns. And hate the HPSC. And she apparently likes her men older and grittier."
Does he want to ask if the elusive leader of the Vigilante Alliance, the country-wide organization of disgruntled former heroes and regular vigilantes, visited All Might with his wife? Probably not. At least no one saw him, so he either got drunk unconscious at whatever place they were drinking that night, or wandered off before the police arrived.
"And is she still planning to slaughter the HPSC' leadership and annihilate the entire organization?" Tsukauchi asks. That's a bit important. "For reasons that I can only sum up as 'cool motive, still murder'?"
"Uhm, she planned to, eventually." All Might says those words, without looking even a tiny bit ashamed. How much feral chaos gremliness remained restrained and hidden from the world by the mantle of the Symbol of Peace all those years? After all, Izuku was his son. He certainly didn't inherit the madness from Inko or All for One. "But then her daughter was born. And she eventually gave up entirely once Izuku joined the UA Heroics Course. She said that her favourite nephew will destroy the HPSC more thoroughly and painfully than she can, so she'll focus on her family. And watch the fireworks on the TV with her husband."
Tsukauchi begins to look forward to his inevitable death. It'll probably be self-inflicted if he fails to restrain the problem child (yes, child, even if he is older than the detective) in front of him.
"All Might." Tsukauchi picks up the most official of tones that he can. "If you do something like that again, I'm not phoning Eraserhead to pick you up. I'm going to phone your wife, Gran Torino AND Sir Nighteye."
Oh. This time the hit went in. All Might looks positively horrified at the prospect. Gran Torino alone was bad enough, but if the other two found out…
"I hoped, I sincerely hoped, that you would straighten Izuku out." Tsukauchi continues. "That you would make him act like a proper hero should. To stop being so much of an overbearingly pure and unstoppable force of mayhem and chaos. Instead, he is the one who is changing you. You have to fight it, Yagi. Stop being a chaos gremlin like your son. For the sake of us all."
He can only hope.
(***)
"Veto." Inko, the love of his life, is merciless. "I'm not letting you do this, Toshi."
Why? Why did she betray him so? He protected their adorable daughter, and this is what he gets in response? A betrayal of the highest magnitude? A veto for the proposal that he put so much thought into?
"No, you have to listen to me." They are in the temporary replacement home at UA grounds. Waiting for Cementoss and Power Loader to finish repairing their apartment. Inko is drinking tea. Toshinori just finished chugging down a one litre bottle of coca cola. His preferred victory drink. "This is a brilliant idea."
It really is!
"If I use guns and martial arts training that I obtained…" Mostly during his retreat to America, damn if that wasn't an eventful journey towards self-realization and brutal extinguishment of your enemies. "...I can actually become Japan's first quirkless hero. No one is going to say no to the former Number One Hero. I can become a symbol for other quirkless, showing them that they can become heroes too!"
And probably atoning finally in his own eyes for the stupid answer he gave to Izuku back then. That was a really badly thought reply.
"And, for as much as I love spending the time with my family and teaching the kids at UA, I just…" He takes a deep breath. "I need to help people. Heroism is… it's just a core point of what I am, of what I always was. It's the mantle of the Symbol of Peace that I grew weary of."
Besides, this is the only way of legalizing the small arsenal that he obtained along the way. Or, at least, the only one that he can achieve on a reasonable timescale.
Silence reigns in the room for almost ten seconds. During that time, she takes another sip of the tea. Gracefully, of course. Then she puts it back on the table. And All Might can feel her eyes on him. With their whole intensity.
"Toshi." She says. With confidence, grace and seriousness that's almost unlike her. "I'm not vetoing your decision to become a hero again, now that your health is improving rapidly. Especially not if it's going to make quirkless people out there not go through the same things that happened to Izuku. I'm vetoing your decision to do that while wearing a cowboy hat and under a hero name of Y'all Might."
Truly, betrayal of those close to you stings the most.
(***)
"So, the plan to kidnap the girl for Overhaul failed." Garaki decides to be a bit sassy about it. "We lost Magne and Moonfish. Almost Kurogiri too, if he didn't warp out in time when All Might began to tear through the other two. What now? Unless that was a part of your plan all along, Re-Destro."
He is busy fine-tuning Nemesis. He is almost ready for release. His quirks and body are practically completed, but his mind is not. Still a few more things to do before he'll be able to field another imperfect copy of his master.
If only he could somehow connect him to the Crown… but he lacks the right quirks. And Mechanist is not very helpful at it. Damn.
"Actually, my good doctor…" Re-Destro speaks from the nearest computer. "... that was a part of my plan all along. The only part that I didn't foresee was All Might repelling the attack on his own, instead of the security doing it for him. Mechanist infiltrated the UA network deeper than I expected."
What?
Re-Destro shares his plan with him. And Garaki understands everything. Oh, he loves working with smart people. Re-Destro might not be All for One's equal, but he is very, very close to that level.
Two birds with one stone. The heroes will be slaughtered this time. And with them, a certain loose end.
(***)
"How is it going, Chrono?" Overhaul asks. He just returned from another strategic meeting (through well-secured internet connection, of course) and he appears to be irritated.
No, more than that. Overhaul is absolutely livid. And this alone makes everyone around him - save for Chronostasis himself - at a distinct risk of being murdered if they get noticed by Overhaul.
Chisaki has a limited amount of underlings nowadays. He has to cherish them. So he will most likely resurrect whoever he killed. Hari Kurono saw him actually apologize to someone for this. Overhaul changed a lot during the past few years.
"The process of quirk-suppression gas replication is going alright." Kurono replies. It's hilarious that the UA still didn't figure out how they were producing it. Especially once the Purity proved herself to be immune to Eraserhead's quirk.
All that they needed to restart the production of the quirk-suppression drug was stealing a dose of his blood and replicating it, somehow. The former was one of the secondary objectives during the USJ attack, one that they succeeded in.
Then they had to find someone with a quirk for replicating liquids. Garaki had such a quirk in his small quirk sample storage rooms, and was nice enough to provide them with a specialist noumu that carried it.
Unfortunately, Eraserhead was useless when it came to producing quirk-erasure drugs. This time all that Overhaul needed was a single drop of Eri's blood.
Well, theoretically. They didn't have a 'blood refreshing' quirk on board. They could replicate the blood they had until it went stale. Eraserhead's blood was all but useless, but they got a lot of quirk-suppressing gas from it before that happened.
They had to restock.
Unfortunately, Re-Destro's clowns failed to capture Eri. And Nedzu has probably ramped-up the security afterwards even more. Another attempt would at the very least make them lose Kurogiri.
Tsk.
PLF's next battle plan apparently required a lot of it. Measuring up to the Council's demands was going to be a pain in the ass.
(***)
Eraserhead hoped that the attempt to kidnap Eri would somehow - just somehow - make Midoriya Izuku, the Demon Child Number Two, behave. That it would remind him of the fact that the villains are out there, that it would make him realize the seriousness of the situation in Japan.
Alas. It didn't.
"Midoriya." Eraserhead asks in his best, 'what have you done problem child' tone. Midoriya at least has the decency of looking slightly ashamed of the situation. But he still tries to wiggle his way out of this.
"In my defense, we were left unsupervised." Midoriya replies and Aizawa really, really wants to throw him out of the window.
"For twenty-six seconds." Aizawa replies. He left the classroom for twenty-six seconds. He actually counted. Because he expected that something bad would happen. He could clearly read it from Yaoyorozu and Midoriya's faces right before he left the classroom. "Why is Kirishima on fire?"
Technically, only his hair was. And Todoroki was clearly on a standby, ready to freeze him if something bad happened.
Of course, this opened another can of worms. Todoroki was there, clearly ready to freeze his classmate's head. That wasn't healthy. That wasn't normal. Then again, that was Todoroki. It came in a package.
Kirishima himself looked to be in a distinct lack of pain. And was clearly pumped up. Probably thinking that his current (rather intimidating, Eraserhead has to admit) visage was very manly.
They are all ignoring the stench of burning hair permeating the classroom. It's the sudden escape of the majority of the students out of the foul-smelling room that made Eraserhead dash back towards his classroom.
The telling lack of some of them and the open windows suggested that at least Uraraka, Asui and Tokoyami bolted through the window. That's not healthy at all, either.
"Well, we wanted to check if his hair is actually fireproof when he hardens." Midoriya replies. "It turned out that if he hardens WHILE on fire, it does. But the fire actually continues burning. This means that his hair retains its ability to serve as a fuel, despite hardening making it so that the process is very slow. This is actually rather fascinating, beca…"
Eraserhead decides to ignore the fact that Kirishima hardened WHILE on fire. He is acutely aware that no, Kirishima isn't fireproof when he isn't hardened. So he agreed to being set on fire for the purpose of an experiment.
Kirishima appears to be the favourite lab rat of the two chief chaos gremlins of the 1-A. Probably due to his durability. Yes, he still remembers following the sound of explosions on the UA grounds and running into Yaoyorozu, Midoriya and Hatsume firing a full-sized anti-tank cannon at Kirishima.
Hatsume was there for live tests of her new experimental ammunition.
They saw no problem in their behaviour. They calculated everything perfectly, and claimed that Kirishima would be alright. And pointed out that their 'training' rapidly increased Kirishima's resistance to hits. Which was undoubtedly true. And the only reason why he didn't expel them all on the spot.
They were still in detention due to that accident. No, it didn't stop them in the slightest. And Aizawa is too afraid of the results to suspend them. Because then, they would have even more free time to do weird-ass things. Without him to even try to stop them.
"Midoriya." He deadpans, interrupting the demon child's line of reasoning. "Why are you like this?"
He can practically see the gears turning in his head. Yaoyorozu seems to be hiding behind an open book, trying to make it look like she wasn't there. She fails, but he is yet to move over to her.
"It's… It's the trauma?" Midoriya tries to save himself by blaming his mental health. A big mistake.
"I'd like to make you realize that I'm receiving weekly updates on your mental health from Hound Dog." Eraserhead announces. "None of what he noted down explains this. The childhood spent with your uncles and stepfather coupled with influence of your father does."
The demon child shrinks in his seat.
"One week detention." Eraserhead announces his verdict. "You too, Yaoyorozu." She has the audacity to look happy. "You'll be having your detention separately from each other from now on." And now, there is pain on her face.
Finally, the punishment looks like it'll stick.
He gives Kirishima three days and Todoroki five. Then he tells them to extinguish the fire finally so that he can return to having a lesson with them.
Todoroki reads that as 'turn Kirishima into a glacier together with half of the classroom'. So he promptly joins the one-week detention team, and looks actually surprised by the fact.
Eraserhead decides to apply to Nedzu for a raise, because he really isn't paid enough to deal with those kids.
(***)
First things first: Feral Dadmight best Dadmight. And that's not even his final form! At least he has Inko right next to him, and she seems to realize that they aren't living in a pure crack fic. Good for her! All Might would be totally... wait for it... hysterical if not for her. Badum tsss.
Also
Inko: We're going to a doctor today!
Aiko: why do I hear boss music
[there is a reason to her fear of dentists, and yes, it's connected to her quirk ;v feel free to speculate]