Sorry for a small pause in publishing of the Exiting the Stage. I was a bit busy. But now, we're back in business.
(***)
Todoroki woke up an hour before meeting with Yaoyorozu. A thankful coincidence, as having this talk in front of Counterfeit might end up messily. Not to mention an offering of an unconscious boyfriend might provoke suspicions of foul play or deception.
He prefers things to go on smoothly, especially with two supervillains being involved. One of which is an unhinged walking weapon of mass destruction… and the other is only narrowly less dangerous.
Asui volunteered to stand guard over him, with a suicidal indifference of a person that doesn't really care if they'll be incinerated by a rampaging lunatic sleeping next to them. Todoroki was either more stable than Midoriya expected or seeing a familiar face in the place he woke up stopped him from giving in to the madness that seemed to run in his family.
When Asui called him, he came. When he entered the room that they converted into his temporary room, she left it.
It wasn't in the same building as the current HQ of the Paranormal Liberation Front. There was a significant risk of Todoroki deciding to greet the world with a Prominence Burn. Having them all get incinerated would truly ruin Midoriya's day.
"Shoto." Midoriya says from the entrance. Wearing his signature clothes. Comfy red boots tailored to fit the differently shaped feet of the quirkless. Black sweatpants. White T-Shirt, this time with a large 'Trousers' writing in front of it. Eri seemed to be the only person other than him that found those funny. "It's been a while."
Todoroki is sitting in the bed, his back on the wall and his legs covered by the quilt. The room itself is extremely bare. The wooden floor is creaking under Midoriya's feet. The whole building is abandoned and in growing disrepair. Bad enough for the people to leave it, but not bad enough for there to be a risk of the roof collapsing on them.
Dust everywhere, a lot of litter, a faint smell of urine. Probably from some hobos spending the night here before the soon-to-be PLF temporarily moved in. Only the bed was moved here from elsewhere through Cloud's warpgate. The whole place was thus expendable in case Todoroki truly lost what was left of his marbles.
And a very fitting place for villains like them to meet. What was left of the first Paranormal Liberation Front really ended up in a gutter, didn't it? Midoriya had a lot of work ahead of him to change that.
"Midoriya." His eyes are… attentive. He was no longer a corpse. Except… What sort of undead he was now? "I didn't expect to see you again."
"And I didn't expect you to take my words about the flames being yours to heart to this degree." Midoriya replies while standing in front of Todoroki. There is only a naked wall behind him, remnants of some paint falling off. "I'm a big fan of your work, Frostfire."
"I didn't kill my father." Todoroki shoots back. Yes, this was a bit of a sore point to him. Was what Dabi said true? Did Endeavor actually try to straighten himself up after Kamino? Did he try to rebuild his family, only for his death to cut it short in the most horrible way possible?
Shoto in front of him didn't seem to carry the same hatred towards Enji Todoroki that Midoriya remembered. Odd. But acts as evidence that Dabi was right.
"I know." Izuku replies and braces for the confrontation. "Because I did it."
Todoroki explodes, his orange flame propelling him towards Midoriya, Izuku doesn't budge. Even when he is slammed against the wall, Todoroki's blazingly-hot hand on his throat. It's all calculated risk on his side. Hopefully he is really good at math.
"...give me one reason." Shoto says. His eyes are that of Dabi. Of a broken man kept together only by hatred and spite. "One reason not to melt your face off right here and right now."
Midoriya must have left a stronger impression on Todoroki back then than he thought. He genuinely expected no chance to speak after his words. Was Shoto actually going to be useful? Maybe even… controllable?
"... if you do so, you won't get to meet Yaomomo again." Midoriya replies. Something in Todoroki's eyes shifts. There is a mixture of hatred, spite… but also longing and emotional pain.
Dabi never had any of that. There was only the obsessive hatred for Endeavor in him. He was insane. Little more than another Muscular. Entropy loved people like them. They shared her desire to see the world burn. Frostfire, though? There was still a small part of him that didn't give in to hate, even after all these years in the closest thing this world had to hell. It was a surprise to Izuku.
"S… she's still alive?" Todoroki says in shock. Despite that, Midoriya is certain that he'll get burned to death in a heartbeat if he tries something funny. "She didn't forget about me?"
How exactly did Shoto Todoroki, the icon of emotionlessness, become like that? Did he always have all of that in him, just bottled down? And when he could no longer keep it down, he went to the opposite extreme?
So much rage and hatred. So much love for his girlfriend. Even after years of imprisonment, after the whole world turned against him, he still dared to hope that she stayed on his side the whole time. And he was right. Midoriya is as amazed as he is envious.
"She knew that you didn't do it." Midoriya replies. Todoroki does his best to keep standing, despite his legs suddenly being… wobbly. His eyes are on Midoriya's face, as if scanning it for any signs that it's just a cruel joke. "She left UA and turned her back on heroics over that. And when I approached her with a recruitment offer, getting you out of Tartarus was the price she set for her soul."
It's like waving a bottle of cold water in front of a man dying of thirst while lost in the desert. There is now an almost impossible degree of happiness on his face, one blooming through still visible shock and disbelief.
Then it snaps back to hatred and spite.
"If you harm her, I swear I'll…" Yaoyorozu was going to be his leash, then. Good to know. Useful, too.
"I won't, Shoto." Despite Todoroki almost hanging off him, Midoriya raises his hands. In a distinctly non-threatening way. "It was a war, back then. And after I was expelled, I joined the Paranormal Liberation Front. Killing heroes like your father was my job. I lost my own father back then too, you know? But now we have peace."
Last days of it, that was.
"You think that I'm going to forgive you?!" Todoroki erupts. Not literally, but there is a gust of very hot air. He must have stopped himself from igniting fully at the last second, probably due to Momo. "You killed my family! You ruined my life! I've spent years in that hell. Years! AND ALL BECAUSE OF YOU!"
He loses control… almost. The flames are finally there. Still not hot enough to harm him, but… Frostfire is on the verge of going all out. And the building will probably be on fire soon. The flames from the initial blast that he used to propel himself towards Midoriya are already eating up the bed.
The results of the meeting were… interesting, to say the least.
"No." Midoriya replies. Despite all that happens in front of him, he reacts without an ounce of fear. The part of him that could feel that emotion died in Deika. Besides, he came prepared. "It was all because of Dabi."
Todoroki is leaning on him at this point, his legs failing to keep him up. He is warm. Much too warm. Hot even, but in the wrong meaning of the word. If Midoriya pushes him too far, this warmth will change into a firestorm.
"What?" Despite that, he is keeping his eyes on Midoriya's face. On his own, confusion. "But…"
"Dabi approached me with some knowledge about Endeavor's estate and asked me to plan his death." Midoriya replies. This is probably the most dangerous part of the talk. Night is always the darkest before dawn. "I remembered what you told me about you being his 'masterpiece' and I suggested Dabi to pair up with Geten. An ice quirk user from the MLA."
Todoroki listens. Midoriya is still alive. Things are going more or less as planned.
"That allowed Dabi to use his flame quirk without having to worry about overheating. While forcing Endeavor to deal with both the heat created by his own techniques but also those of his opponent." He continues. As far as he knew, the plan went off without a hitch. If you excluded the part where Geten died. But did Endeavor kill him… or was it Dabi, intent on erasing the only witness? They'll probably never know. "I didn't know that he was planning to frame you, Shoto. And I didn't know that he planned to set your family estate on fire."
The fight was happening in the forest next to it. One more thing that Izuku didn't account for. At the time, he didn't know how far Dabi's hatred for Endeavor went. How personal it was. He didn't learn of Dabi's true name until months after that night.
He learned from that experience. Unfortunately, it still ruined Shoto Todoroki's life while ending the lives of his family.
Shoto's body is failing him. Too much emotions for too weak of a flesh. He is slipping down. His hands grasp at the collar of Izuku's T-Shirt. The direct contact between his fingers and Izuku's body leaves the latter with some first degree burns.
Midoriya clenches his teeth. Then he grabs Todoroki's arm by the wrist and pulls it off. And then he lets it go.. Todoroki falls back. Instead of hitting the floor, he lands on a throne of ice conjured out of nowhere. On his face, a mess of emotions that Midoriya doesn't even know how to unpack.
"Why?" He asks, looking up at Izuku. "Why did he do all of that? What did we do to him to deserve that?"
"It was Touya, Shoto." Midoriya replies and Todoroki blinks at him a few times. He clearly doesn't understand. So Izuku elaborates. "Dabi's true name was Touya Todoroki. He destroyed your life because he hated Endeavor. And he couldn't stand the fact that Enji Todoroki was trying to piece his family back together. That he tried to make amends."
Todoroki stares at him. For the first time since the beginning of this talk, Izuku has absolutely no idea what's happening in his head. But eventually, after what feels like eternity, Shoto leans back on the ice throne… and laughs. Bitterly.
"This is fucking hilarious." He says. "Think about it. Endeavor was obsessed with the Number One Hero seat. He infected Touya with the same obsession, and then tried to put those flames out when it turned out that they were destroying his son. Then, after Touya supposedly died, Endeavor tried to infect me too. Fast forward a decade, and Endeavor gets what he wanted, except when he no longer wanted it. Then, when he longer cared about the Number One Hero seat, I decided to actually go for it. And then Dabi, that fucking Frankenstein's monster, decided that he hates all of that so he decided to destroy everything in the name of his own disappointment that he was forbidden from pursuing his own obsession about the Number One Hero seat." He snorts and leans forward a bit. "And now we don't even have a Number One Hero seat, because the Commission reformed the entire system. So the whole drama of the Todoroki family was fucking pointless from the start."
It was probably the longest continuous stream of words from Todoroki that Midoriya ever heard. Despite being surprised by it, he listens in silence. Eventually Shoto takes a deep breath.
"What's your plan?" He says, his eyes once again on Izuku. It seems that Midoriya most likely won't die this day. Most likely.
"I'm going to start the Second Paranormal Liberation War." Midoriya replies. Todoroki blinks at him in shock. "I'm going to overthrow the government that allowed all of that to happen. That fed Endeavor's obsession all those years. That had me expelled from the UA and turned into an object of popular hatred to recoup PR losses. That had you wrongly imprisoned and slowly tortured to death for years. That forced people like Yaomomo to choose between their conscience and following the law."
"That's rather fucking ambitious." Todoroki replies. Something in his eyes is gleaming. Something that reminds Izuku of Dabi. There is fire and hatred there. And a whole lot of spite. "I thought the PLF's down for the count."
"Oh, it totally is." Midoriya shrugs before looking around the building. "I mean, look around you. Does it look like we have a lot of resources to spare? But we have some very competent people with nothing left to lose. And there is nothing more dangerous than that. Add the fact that the government is busy with different threats… and we can take advantage of that."
Todoroki says nothing. But the fire in his eyes is still there. But more than it used to be.
"We can hit it hard before it realizes that it's under attack. We can hit it harder than anyone since All for One managed to do." Midoriya continues. "And, last but not least… we can drag the woman that was responsible for all of it out of her ivory tower. She used to be the president of the Hero Commission, Shoto. But now she is the prime minister. I don't know about you, but I really can't stand it." He extends his hand towards Shoto. "What will you say about getting some revenge together?"
He expected fire and heat. Instead Shoto's hand was very, very cold. All of the heat seemed to go into his eyes.
"Whom do you want me to kill?" Shoto Todoroki asks. And Midoriya realizes that his newest recruitment mission ended with success.
He truly had the best classmates back then.
(***)
Despite so many years passing, the trauma of seeing Kurogiri-like warpgate open anywhere close to you still held strong. Out of the three of them, only Biohazard was unaffected. The memories she associated with this sight were completely different.
"I'm having second thoughts." Yaoyorozu announces. The warper (Cloud?) seems to be staring at her in silence. "Because this really feels like a trap."
She has a very powerful and useful quirk. One whose very nature she was hiding from other villains. Only Biohazard, Songbird and Hatsume knew. For the same reason she made sure that no one knew that she was Counterfeit.
The idea of Momo getting caught and exploited for her quirk was… uncomfortable, to say the least. And very possible.
"Isn't it a bit too late to get cold feet?" Biohazard signs to her. "Besides, we both know that you really want to have him back."
"She's probably looking forward to 'welcome-back sex'." Songbird signs as well. Momo doesn't see it through the helmet, but she is probably grinning. "She spent way too many nights touching herself while thinking of him not to go for that immediately. Not to mention all the times when she had to ask me for…"
"You've seem to have really forgotten where we are, now didn't you?" Yaoyorozu interrupts her before sighing loudly. Does Cloud understand sign language? If so, then she didn't make any indication of that. "Alright, let's go in. It's probably a trap, but they really chose the right bait, didn't they?" She looks at Cloud. The warper shrugs.
Her quirk is clearly similar to Kurogiri's, but not identical. The mist is all there, but the way it moves in the air resembles clouds. More than that, her warpgates aren't transparent. You need to walk through the mist to get anywhere, and that's… much more helpful when traps are involved.
It's her main reason for worry.
But just as she said, the bait is simply too good. So she walks through the gate of mists after her bodyguards.
If she expected a trap, she got none. Only two people in the room. One was Midoriya, smirking at her in a way that made her want to punch him. The other was…
Her heart stopped for a moment. Then she ran forward. She didn't even notice Midoriya leaving the room.
(***)
After thirty minutes of rushed catching-up, Momo Yaoyorozu was livid. So incredibly furious that if Midoriya was still in the room, he would decide that she and her boyfriend were truly similar to each other.
"I'm going to kill them all." She announces. Behind her, Jirou grins under the helmet. Sounds like things are going to get fun.
"We're going to kill them all." Shoto corrects her, with the eyes of someone madly in love. The eyes that falter for a moment." I… when I was in there for so long, I thought…"
"Shh…" She puts her fingers on his cheeks. Their faces are almost touching each other. "I knew you didn't do it. And I knew that turning my back on you after that… it wouldn't be very heroic."
He chuckles bitterly.
"We aren't heroes, Momo." Yes, they aren't. But…
"The other meaning of 'heroic', Sho." She says. The meaning that still meant something to her, even after being buried for so long. Even if she tended to not act that way. "I won't lie to you, eventually… eventually I'd probably move on, but…"
His back is partially supported by an ice wall. His right hand is on his waist. Another on the walking cane. Together he somehow manages to stay upright. But it's an achievement.
"We were together for seven months. And you waited for me for seven years." He replies. "I wouldn't blame you if you forgot about me years ago. And…" He takes a deep breath. "I need to tell you about something."
A few somethings. Like the fact that Midoriya was behind Endeavor's death. And Dabi. It was going to be the first and last time he was ever going to use that man's real name. Even in his thoughts.
Oh, and also the tiny fact that he already agreed to join the League of Villains.
With Midoriya around, it was going to be… an adventure.
(***)
To Izuku's surprise, Yaomomo ends up confronting him on her own. Todoroki clearly didn't mind waiting for her for a moment more. She also didn't take Tagawa and Jirou with her, and that's perhaps even more surprising.
Asui led her to Midoriya's office. And then left without a word.
"I… need to talk with you." Momo says, her eyes drilling into Midoriya. "About what I just learned."
Oh, of course he told her about that. Should Midoriya even be surprised? Probably not. Those two are probably going to be more inseparable than Tenko and Suto. He could still barely believe the fact that they could actually live on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean and not go insane out of loneliness.
He points towards the chair on the opposite side of the desk. She pulls it close and sits on it.
"I am…" She says. "... unbelievably furious right now." Uh-oh.
"Furious about?" And now he feels like a therapist. He did help some of his classmates back then, after all. The war ended up undoing most of his efforts, however.
"You and the brother of one of your underlings ruined Shoto's life." She replies, her eyes on him. The intensity is… rather intimidating.
"In Hypothermia's defense, she and Geten get along worse than me and Bakugou used to while we were both at UA." Izuku decides to point it out. "He actually tried to kill her on at least two occasions."
Sore loser, honestly. All that talk about strong meta-abilities meaning everything, and then he was trying to kill someone with a stronger quirk than his out of personal spite for them being stronger. He and Skeptic were the least likable people in the MLA leadership, in Midoriya's opinion.
"I expected you to focus on defending yourself." She replies. He gives her an odd stare. "... you're right, that would be oddly out of character." Midoriya actually snorts at that.
"More than that, I just don't have any way of defending myself here." He adds after a second. Once again, he managed to catch Yaomomo off-guard. "It was a war. I was doing my best to win it. Trust me, if me and Todoroki were to compare the list of family members we've lost back then, I'd win by far." He sighs painfully. "I prefer to think of the future."
Silence. She spends a few long seconds trying to read something from his face. Whatever it is, she most likely didn't succeed.
"So… are you going to try to renege on your deal or…" Midoriya asks. It's honestly a formality at this point. They both know it.
"No, I won't." She replies. She has a strange feeling that trying to go back on her word would have… consequences. Lethal, maybe. Besides, she really wants the heroes to burn for what they've done to him. "You got yourself three new members of the League of Villains. Four if you include Shoto."
"Brilliant." Midoriya smiles at her. "Time to have a brief introductory talk about what we're going to do next. We'll save the proper strategy meeting for another occasion, since I assume that you're really looking forward to catching-up with Shoto."
"Midoriya is… terrifying." Momo says after emerging from his office. Todoroki is there, his back on the wall and the walking cane in front of him. Jirou and Tagawa are eyeing them both from the other end of the room. Cloud's back, too. "And also a clever, manipulative bastard." Her voice makes it clear that she is impressed more than angry.
"Really?." Shoto looks at her strangely. "He seems more suicidal than manipulative to me. Confronting me, saying all of that… crazy ass." Yaoyorozu wasn't there to see it, she only got a rushed summary of what happened from him, but if he didn't make anything up… that was a correct assessment.
"Nope." Cloud says and suddenly all the eyes in the room are on her. "We had you under an intent-detection quirk. If you actually wanted to harm him, I'd warp him out in an instant. And then he would detonate the bomb remotely."
"Err… bomb?" Todoroki blinks at her a few times.
"Yes, the one under the floorboards in that room." She replies. "It would kill you, but we also have access to a quirk that can resurrect freshly deceased, regardless of how damaged they are. He would piece you up together before handing you to Counterfeit."
"Wait, what?" Todoroki clearly fails to comprehend what he just heard. "Does that mean…"
"... he was testing you." Yaoyorozu pieces it up together the fastest. Shoto looks at her questioningly. "He was making sure that you can be controlled. So he intentionally provoked you to see if you would try to kill him on the spot. He was never in danger to begin with."
Todoroki processes what he just heard. Eventually arrives at the conclusion.
"Oh that sly son of a bitch." He says. His voice almost matches Yaoyorozu's in tone. "Looks like the future's going to be interesting."
If what Midoriya told her about the plan wasn't a misdirection… then the answer was yes. She had no idea what his whole plan was, but that's what he was opening it with… Japan was never going to be the same afterwards.
"Cloud, I'm going to give you the GPS coordinates of my current housing." Yaoyorozu says. "Warp us all there. I need to do some preparations." Midoriya gave her a stack of paper. Containing instructions on what exactly has to be produced.
He told her that she was now under Search's quirk. How exactly Ragdoll was still alive was going to be explained to her soon. She could no longer try to betray him without his knowledge.
There were ways. But he was intentionally vague on how her quirk worked now. He only told her that it changed. Good way of keeping her in line. Mostly redundant way of keeping her in line.
She had a job to do. She had an enterprise to promote. She wasn't going to turn her back on him. In whose favour, to begin with? The government that tortured Shoto for years? The NVA? Spyglass would probably ignore Yaoyorozu's criminal history, but PLF could achieve what NVA failed at for years.
Momo Yaoyorozu will cooperate. For now.
He gave her a deadline. It was… It was going to be very hard to meet. But she had her quirk AND her various connections.
Hatsume was going to be involved in more than just designing things. Momo was a living material printer, but there was only so much matter that she could push down her throat to be reforged into weapons and support items. They didn't get bulk orders often, but they DID have some alternative production options prepped just in case.
"Well, you better get whatever you need started quickly." Todoroki says while pushing himself off the wall. "Because I didn't get to see you for seven years. We have a lot of catching-up to do. And this messed-up body of mine isn't slowing me down in the slightest."
Well, she was looking forward to it as well.