Succession Crisis: When Seven met Nine
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/27104341.
Rating:
Archive Warning: Category: Fandom:
Relationship: Character: Additional Tags: Stats:
Explicit
Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
F/M
僕のヒーローアカデミア Boku no Hero Academia My Hero Academia
Midoriya Izuku/Shimura Nana, Sixth One for All User (My Hero Academia)/Original (sort of) female character
Sixth One for All User (My Hero Academia), Midoriya Izuku, Shimura Nana, Original (sort of) female character
Time Travel, Midoriya Izuku Needs A Hug, Boot strap paradox, AU, obviously, Six is a leomon
Published: 2020-10-19 Updated: 2021-10-21 Chapters: 8/? Words: 35015
Summary
Succession Crisis: When Seven met Nine
by halo4hire
Time travel. Arguably the most controversial concept discussed about by theoretical physicist around the world. Also one of the most fun to mess with. During the events of USJ, the gravity of a black hole reacts to the space warping effects of Gate in ways no one could have imagined, pulling Izuku Midoriya through the time space continuum where he meets a young girl with ebony black hair and a... digimon?
Izuku Midoriya and the most excellent adventure
Chapter Summary
"what is drama, but life with all the dull bits cut out?" - Alfred Hitchcock
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The Theory of Relativity. Thought up by a theoretical physicist by the name of Albert Einstein, theorized that gravity altered the passing of time, and that time slows down or speeds up depending on how fast one moved relative to something else. If a spaceship were to approach the speed of light, the person inside would age much slower than his twin at home.
What Einstein, Hawking, or any theoretical physicist couldn't know was that time was a barrier, and in the event that space and time were enacted on by the gravitational event horizon, the space/time continuum could potentially be torn open and create a powerful chronal vacuum.
Theorists all over the world have untested thoughts as to exactly what this would do. Would it open the possibility of time travel? Would it shatter the world? The full effects of this event are unknowable, untestable. This doesn't include the theories of time travel themselves: that there were multiple time-lines (multiverse theory), or that time was linear and changing the past would change the present (defined by theories such as the grandfather and the bootstrap paradoxes).
So what would happen in the event that space were to be ripped open in a tunnel between two fixed points and applied to the event horizon of a black hole? Would the Temporal Barrier snap or would it stretch like a slingshot? If a person is caught in the chronal vortex, obviously they would be caught in the pull of force trying to fill the void, but what would happen after?
The working theory is that the person would be sent careening in an uncontrollable spiral through the chronal void forever or until they are pulled into a fixed point, if the linear stream theory were to be applied. However, if the multiversal theory is applied, then this would be more of a dimensional void where infinite worlds exists and the person would be sent spiraling until they landed in a dimension or alternate world. Regardless of the method or theory applied, both have no form of control, and it would be impossible to guide and explore without some form of an anchor.
Luckily for us, Dear Reader, this is fan fiction and we have a theoretical anchor: One for All. A generational power passed down from one to another, growing stronger each time it is passed like a torch that ignites a bonfire in each carrier. Each new carrier had access to more fuel for the fire than the previous. However that was not all it did.
The longer this torch is held, the more and more clearer an imprint of the wielder is taken on, carrying their echo of sorts to the next wielder. Meaning the power itself could potentially act as a theoretical anchor to multiple points, depending on which user is sent through time and space.
Let us test our hypothesis, shall we?
Yueii High School, Musutafu Prefecture, Tokyo, Japan Unforeseen Situation Joint
April 12, 2220
"There's no time for analysis, Midoriya! Hurry up and evacuate!" shouted a robot-looking teenager with glasses, turning to look back at his green haired classmate.
"There is no escape for you." A tall thin man appeared in a swirl of mist. The Yuuei class of 1-A and the black hole heroine stared at the figure in panic. The smoke-headed villain bowed his head slightly, surprising the group of teenagers, his large sinisterly glowing yellow eyes never leaving the group. "It's a pleasure to meet you. We are the League of Villains," he said as he stood up straight. "I know it's impolite, but we decided to invite ourselves into this haven of justice to say hello." The group slowly began to back up as Thirteen stood firm, her arms wide to guard the children as the figure opened his arms wide to the interior ceiling.
"And besides, isn't this a fitting place for All Might, the Symbol of Peace, to take his last breath?" The mist asked in a jubilant voice, looking down at the gathered class. "I believe he was supposed to be here today, and yet I see no sign of him. There must have been some sort of change in plans we could not have foreseen." He fixed his cuffs. "No matter, in the end, I still have a role to play," the villain said ominously.
An ash blond-haired kid and a red haired bolted forward, the blond splashing an white explosion into the smoky head while the dye-job slammed his hardened fist through the flames of the explosion.
"Not if we take care of you first!" The explosive shouted with a sneer, the red head laughing and slamming his fist into his palm. "Betcha didn't see that coming!" He said with a snicker.
The smoke of the explosion slowly cleared revealing the villain only had scoffed up cloths as he waved the smoke away from his... smoke. "You live up to your school's reputation. However, you should be more careful, children." He exploded into a wall of black smoke that circled around the class, "Otherwise, someone might get hurt. Now begone! I'll scatter you across this facility, to meet my comrades, and your death!" The voice echoed from the mist as it swirled around the group. Tendrils reached out and grabbed parts of the group, pulling the class apart individually.
Thirteen quickly uncapped her fingers, "Bakugou! Kirishima! Get behind me, I'm unleashing my quirk!"
"Oh? Did you truly think we did not account for you, Thirteen? The harlot of the rescue field? I am here to specifically counter you!"
In the space of five seconds, four things happened: first, the space heroine unleashed the full gravity of a black hole, creating an event horizon in front of her. The second was the warp villain creating a warp gate to absorb the destructive gravity of the power, and another to unleash it behind the heroine. The third, was that the very air around Thirteen seemed to ripple and crack apart and odd bright flashes of energy began streaking around the space-themed Pro Hero.
The fourth, was her being rammed out of the feedback loop that was forming as the gravity well pulled reality itself apart. The young adult groaned and lifted up from the ground just in time to see her green-haired student being locked in a soundless scream as he was stretched, twisted and warped, before being pulled apart at an atomic level by the gravity well. Eventually, the loop ended with a pop and the effects disappeared, leaving only a horrifically stretched pinky to fall to the ground with a splatter.
The redhead stared at the grotesquely-stretched digit with a look of shock on his face. A shorter brunette with a bob cut slapped her hands over her mouth in horror and the robot puked to the side.
The blond exploded.
"YOU FUCKER! YOU SNOT FLINGING, SHIT LICKING, STUPID LOOKING, ASININE MOTHER FUCKER! I'M GONNA FUCKING MURDERIZE YOU!" he cried,
launching himself into the stunned villain and unleashing his most powerful explosion into the villain's chest, ripping the smoke open and revealing the face under the smog, with the shockwave shaking the entire building in an enormous clap of thunder. He continued to beat into the now unconscious man's face as tears streamed down his rage-contorted face. He grabbed hold of the metal neck brace and began to bend and break it. It took seven kids to pull Bakugou off the villain so they could restrain the man, and the neck brace could be seen sparking from the exposed wires.
The ground shook as another roll of thunder cracked through the building, with a white dot forming where the green haired boy disappeared ( as if someone had rubbed an eraser on reality), shocking the children that remained as they watched it grow. The dot grew with another crack of thunder, and a bolt of pure white energy struck the ground, leaving another pure white jagged crack-like line that began to grow, and then another. They watched in horror as one of the jagged lines arced out to the villain and suddenly he just wasn't there anymore. All that remained was a white silhouette, like he had been erased from reality.
Thirteen jumped in front of the group, but the Pro Hero was struck with white before she could do anything. The class broke as they ran for the door of the building in a panic, leaving behind the explosive blonde and the bob cut brunette, pure white silhouettes of them soon replacing the two grieving children.
Within the span of thirty minutes, the entire USJ building was turned into a pure white silhouette. An hour after, all of Musutafu was enveloped. After a day, all of Japan was a white dot that slowly became a line as the planet rotated on its axis. Within a week, the entire solar system was erased as the white showed no signs of stopping, instead only providing the inverse as the white erased existence.
Unknown
Pain.
That was all he felt as he was pushed and pulled in so many directions. He had felt his joints relocate only to dislocate again, and his skin burned each time the white energy struck him and sent him careening through the void from the force of the strikes. Angry red blotches pulsed in his vision when he opened his eyes.
"If you feel yourself hitting up against your limit, remember for what cause you clench your fists! Remember why you started down this path and let that memory carry you beyond your limit!"
"So no matter how scary things get, give 'em a smile, as if to say 'I'm a-okay'. The people in this world who can smile are always the strongest.
"Be brave, Nana. Part of me will always be with you. Remember, you have a lion's heart."
"THERE WON'T BE ANOTHER CHANCE! BLACK WHIP RAMPAGE!"
Voices filled the void, with flashes of what looked like memories flaring each time the energy struck him. Flashes and words came to him as he spun in agony.
"It is not at your best that you find the courage to continue, li'l Banjo, but it is at your worst. Your lowest is when you have to dig deep. Buck up, grit them teeth and punch through!"
"My name is Sanji Montoya. You killed my master. Prepare to die."
He coughed up some form of fluid when the white lightning hit him hard in the stomach, seeing a flash of a beautiful woman with ebony black hair bent with her hands on her knees as she gave a young green haired girl a kind smile. He thought he could hear screaming, but in the overwhelming silence, he couldn't find the source.
"SANJI, LISTEN AND LISTEN WELL! YOU WILL BE THE THIRD BEARER OF ONE FOR ALL! CARRY IT WITH PRIDE!"
The void crackled around him as a larger, wider white bolt of energy struck the floating figure, leaving a scorched mark on his spine.
"Hello again, big brother. You have no idea how long I wanted to see you again, AFTER YOU KILLED MY WIFE! "
When a flash of a much younger version of the woman flashed in his eyes, he forced his mind to try to hold onto the image as tightly as he could. The boy couldn't say as to why, only that it felt like he should. He was pretty sure he blacked out, because instead of the kaleidoscopic void, he saw clouds above him, which were nice and all, aside from the fact he was free falling. He tried to angle his busted body so that he rotated which only caused him more pain and sapped what little of his energy he had left. Below him was a small beach and it was rushing closer fast.
The wind rushed past his ears as his limbs flapped and waved uselessly behind him. Something inside him pulled him to the two people sitting in a boat anchored near the shore. One of them, a smaller dot, was jumping up and down and gesturing to him, and the other, a far larger dot, was shielding his eyes looking up in Izuku Midoriya's direction as the green-haired boy fell. Izuku could make out two tents set in the back end of the beach, with what looked like towels and bags.
A gust of wind sent him rolling in the air two hundred meters from the water. He would have screamed, but his throat hurt. He would have tried to move, but he was just too tired. This was probably where his story ended; he simply didn't have enough energy to swim to the shore. He was so tired.
He hit the water like a meteor, sending water high into the sky, and the world turned black.
The day wasn't going as she had expected when she woke up. Yesterday, her mentor had passed on One for All to her and she expected to start learning badassed moves like his Fist of the Beast King. Instead, he had her flicking a fishing rod. Sure, she enjoyed the fishing, but what did it have to do with the quirk he passed onto her? She rolled her eyes again as she flicked her lure back out. So instead she sat in her frayed blue jean shorts and her loose purple 'Dark Side of Moon Floyd' shirt over her black, spaghetti-strap undershirt. She had dressed expecting to learn how to fight, and yet here she was: baking in the sun, back to furry back with her teacher.
"Tell me, little Masumi, have you figured out the lesson yet?" Her mentor, Rokuoh Hiraoka asked as he scratched his thick mane that hung off his jawline. The King Lion hero: Braveheart was a large, imposing figure that made Nana's mother blush every time he came to collect her for training (probably due to the fact that the man considered shirts offensive and was fighting a personal war against the fabric by constantly flaunting his extreme muscle packed torso). His tanned skin was covered in a fuzz of short golden fur that rippled every time he flicked his rod. His tail snapped like a whip as it popped her hat off the top of her black hair.
Before she could answer, a crack of thunder rolled loudly through the sky followed by an odd shattering of glass with an explosive KRAKAKAKOOM high above them. Nana searched the heavens trying to find the source. The man she affectionately dubbed 'Leomeow-sensei' stood shielding his eye, so she jumped up to look harder.
It took a minute, but she saw a small form spinning wildly as it fell. It was wrong, horrifically so. the person was folding into themselves the wrong way ! She began pointing and bouncing, trying
to draw her mentor's eye to it, until he stiffened and dove into the water. There was a hard boom as he shot through the water towards the spot the blur was going to hit. She quickly secured the rods and hopped on the engine, and began to push the boat away from the impact point, trying to get away from the epicenter of what could become a large wave. The loud BOOM that sent the water high into the air, making a wave roll in her direction as she pushed the motor hard. Gripping the seat support, she used her quirk, Float, to remove the gravity and add more speed to the small craft.
Finally, the wave crashed and she turned the boat around to look for Leomeow-sensei. She steered the boat close to where she thought the impact point was, looking for her master. She scanned and scanned as the second turned into minutes. Panic was starting to set in.
The boat gave a heavy rock as a large, golden, clawed hand gripped the edge hard enough to crack the wood, as her mentor looked up at her amethyst eyes. "Nana, bring us ashore. Slowly. He's seriously injured."
They broke through the shore with just enough speed to slightly beach the boat as the large lion man rushed to pull the small boy out of the water and immediately began checking his injuries, barking orders to his protégé and trying to coax the water out of the boy's lungs. His arms were quickly tied to driftwood and the still bleeding stump of the boy's left pinky cauterized and bandaged.
They thought it was in vain as the boy gave no reaction to the chest compressions, and were ready to call his time of death, when the boy's body was enveloped with bright white electrical sparks that coursed over the shattered limbs. His chest gave a mighty heave, forcing the water to pour out of his mouth and with a loud hard intake, and the green-haired boy sat up and began coughing. The white electricity had Rokuoh staring at the boy in shock. Nana, however, felt relief that the boy wasn't her first cadaver.
She looked over the boy, noting that while toned and moderately muscular, he was still scrawny, with unruly green hair that jutted all over the place. Aside from the patterned freckles on his face, he was actually rather plain. Normal looking. Well, as normal as someone with green hair could be. He looked to be wearing what looked like a ripped up blue tracksuit, with the jacket mostly burned away to just the lower hem, the zipper and the right sleeve. Underneath was a white undershirt that was burned away at the left shoulder. The pants didn't fare much better, with ripped and burned legs. the right side was barely even there, leaving enough to preserve his modesty.
"Eh, he's kinda scrawny, Leomeow-sensei. Can we throw him back and see if we can catch something with more meat?" Her teacher didn't get the chance to respond. The white lightning died down and Nana saw more scars and wrinkled flesh one his body than there were cars in Tokyo. One scar on his left shoulder even looked like a handprint! What had this guy been through?
Wide, verdant eyes that held back so much pain met her amethyst, and it felt like something inside her pulsed in a connection. Purple energy began to arc along her arms, with vibrant green veins flowing from her shoulders down to her fingertips. It felt unreal! So raw, so powerful! So painful! And holy shit , did it hurt! She quickly tried to release the quirk, only to find she wasn't in command. The boy was no different either, with green and white energy sparking powerfully over his body as crimson red lines shone all over his body. Rokuoh had to stand back as the powerful man was clueless as to what was going on. Or, at least that's what Nana hoped.
Leomeow-sensei wouldn't withhold information, would he?
Izuku had known pain all his life; being told he was quirkless and that he should give up his dream of being a hero, then having his childhood friend turn on him in an attempt to 'protect' Izuku from his dream.
Having said dream unconsciously crushed by his own mother when she said the wrong thing. Isolation due to his quirkless nature, desperation for attention, suicidal depression when he found none.
Until he met All Might, Toshinori Yagi, his life had been utter hell. At first, All Might (unknowingly) crushed his dream, but soon ate his words after seeing Izuku risk his pathetic life to protect the boy who 'protected' him. The road to hell always looked nice with the bricks of good intentions paving it, after all.
Learning that All Might's quirk was a sacred flame passed on from one generation to the next was awe inspiring. When the hero surrendered into a dogeza and apologized full heartedly to the boy, stating that the Pillar of Peace wanted him to be his successor, Izuku had cried.
Someone finally believed in him.
The training and community service was hard, but fighting the depression and isolation had been harder. He fought to complete the task of cleaning Tagobah Municipal Beach with a wide smile that dared the world to interfere. He worked through the pain and the strain without a single complaint, and earned All Might's respect. The day before the entrance exam, All Might fulfilled his promise and named Izuku his successor, passing on the torch of One for All. That had been the best day of his life.
Now, he was sitting on a beach again, with white and green lightning sparking around him. One for All was a raging, thrashing storm inside of him, with a girl who had purple electricity coursing over her body and a large man who looked like a Digimon from the pre-quirk era. The fog of pain rolled in his vision, threatening to white out the world. The Digimon was saying something, but through the buzz and crackle of both the pain and inner storm, he wasn't able to make anything out. He tried to calm the storm inside him, but it only flared up in response, forcing him to grit his teeth in pain. Nine points on his body burned in fiery agony from where the white energy of the void had struck him.
The Digimon tried to step closer, only to immediately jump away when he was struck by the white electricity. What was happening? Why was One for All acting like this? Who were these two? Why did the quirk pull him to them? Too many questions, not enough answers.
Rokuoh Hiraoka was many things: brave to the point of foolishness, lazy, strong. One thing he was the most at this moment, was afraid. He knew the signs, but this was impossible. He had just passed One for All to Masumi, so it shouldn't have triggered at all yet. So how was she floating with small purple sparks? Why did it look like she was in pain?
Why did the boy affect the quirk? Oh yes, he could feel the pull and it was strong, like the embers of the powerful quirk was excitedly greeting a long lost relative, and not like it had felt when he had first met the bastard that killed his master and friend Banjo. Rokuoh narrowed his eye and looked at his hand. He had felt the sheer power inside the boy when Rokuoh touched the boy, like he was holding back a literal ocean of raw uncontrolled energy waiting to be unleashed. He had even felt himself inside the power, which was what truly baffled him. It was the white energy, however that scared him the most. When it hit the large lion man, it put a memory in his mind that wasn't his own.
"You really wanna have a quirk so bad? Take a swan dive off the roof and pray you have a quirk in your next life!"
He could feel the shock and despair of the young man when the ash-blond kid in the memory said that; the sheer depression inside his heart was concerning. Why had the blond kid said something like that? Something so cruel and hateful? The punk needed the taste slapped out of his mouth. Impotent rage made Leomon Rokuoh want to find the ash blond kid and spank his ass like his daddy should have. Telling someone to kill themselves, suicide baiting, was something so... so... villainous, that it caused his stomach to turn.
The activated quirks were more concerning for right now, though. If his thoughts were right, then there was some kind of harmonization going on. He squinted at Nana, seeing a mixture of green
with her purple energy, just as purple was beginning to join the green on the boy, as the synchronization storm that he set off seemed to wane and die. It was almost as if One for All had shared itself.
He blinked. That couldn't be possible.
He knelt down in front of the kid, drawing the boy's eyes to him. The boy's sclerae looked like shattered stained glass with so many red veins glowing in the white, but it was the green that held his attention. The iridescent green of his pupils made Rokuoh remember the woods he used to play in as a kid, how he met his wife, Jeri, in the grassy fields near his middle school, and them watching their young son running through the growth of his home. The boy's eyes, though filled with immense pain, seemed to just scream 'All will be well'.
It made this harder than it should have been.
"All right, kid, you're conscious now, so that's a good thing. Bad thing is, aside from the plethora of broken bones, you somehow were able to fall directly into a secret of the state and I'm gonna have to ask you some questions. If you can speak, confirm you can hear please."
"I-er..I c-can h-hear you."
"Good. You don't have to look like you've seen a ghost."
"B-B-But I am. Y-You're the King of Courage, the King Lion hero: Braveheart! I read about you
when I was seven! You died protecting a girl from a villain who put his hand through your heart! HowareyoustandinginfrontofmeIknowalmosteverythingaboutyourlifeandtriedtoemulateyourknownfightingstyle —"
'Ok, what?' The lion man thought. "Kid!" The boy jerked like he'd been slapped when Rokuoh shouted. "What's the date?"
"Twelfth of April, 2220" the kid stated with certainty.
Rokuoh blinked. "Okay, let's come back to that. What number are you?"
a
"W-W-What d-do you mean?" "I can feel One for All in—"
The kid tried to jerk up, probably to get into a fighting stance but fell on his back when his broken bones refused to support him. Eventually, the boy gave up trying to stand, and instead settled for glaring at Rokuoh. "H-How do you know about One for All?"
Rokuoh raised his brow. The boy was certainly no stranger to pain. "Leomeow-sensei, are you trying to say this wimp has... um... my quirk?"
"He has it, no doubt about that. How, I don't know. All I can think of is frankly completely impossible. The quantum mechanics alone is seriously hard to follow."
"Quant— are you trying to say he's a time traveler? Big guy, this is reality, not science fiction!" She exclaimed in a small scoff of disbelief.
"I'm not trying to say anything. This is so far out of my comfort zone it ain't even funny. So kid, I'll ask again: which holder are you?" He said with a sterner voice.
"N-Nine."
Well shit. Either this was some elaborate ruse created by All for One (something Rokuoh wouldn't put past the sick fuck) or they just met a bona-fide time traveler, and seeing the reaction of One for All, time travel was probably the most likely scenario.
"Well, Nine, wish we could've met under better circumstances. I'm number six, Rokuoh Hiraoka, and that is Seven, Nana Masumi. Welcome to the year 2155. It's February. "
The boy's verdant green eyes bounced between the two of them, before they rolled up in his skull and he went as limp as a ragdoll. Nana crossed her arms and glared at the hero.
"Are you really buying into this, Leomeow-sensei? Time travel?"
He walked over to his tent and began to dismantle it. "Li'l Masumi, I felt the power in the boy. Seeing as I've held the power for twenty years, I'm well familiar with the feel of it. That said, his version is far, far more powerful than mine ever was. I don't think I've ever come across so much power in my life!" He said with his gravelly voice steadily growing louder in his aggravation.
"The only conclusions I can make is that he is from the future or the boy is unknowingly an elaborate creation by a villain I pray you will never meet. One I'm not personally ready to tell you about yet. Call me an old fool, but I'm praying this is the latter and you got a training partner," he said, as he finished folding the fabric of the tent, before stopping as a thought occurred to him. How was he going to explain it to Jeri that they had another mouth to feed?
Chapter End Notes
Special thanks to Cygus Lorman over in Epsi's Hoard, where I hang out. Look for the glow of my neon halo!
If you want a more direct way to find me, come on over to my server, Halo's Extreme Disconnect, we have Cinnabons
Dude, where's my T.A.R.D.I.S.?
Chapter Summary
Wibbly wobbly timey whimey... stuff.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Jeri Hiraoka sighed as she took off the helmet of her hero gear, casually letting her long, brown and pink hair out of its bun and letting it fall between her two luminescent, leaf-like wings. The house was quiet without Rokuoh or Takuya running around making racket, with her lion-headed husband training his successor and their son visiting with his friend Izumi "call me Zoe" Orimoto, a cute little butterfly girl that Jeri fully intended to take under her wing, pun intended. She could see quite the little kickboxer in the girl, but the girl needed more confidence in herself.
Jeri smiled slightly as she looked at the picture of her family. It had been almost two decades since she met the wimp that was Rokuoh, a small, sniveling, cowardly lion cub of a boy. It had been hate at first sight. She wasn't proud of it, but she had been a complete tyrant in his early years. Bullying him and just generally making life difficult. Then puberty happened; one summer he left town and came back with a backbone and toned muscles.
At first, Jeri tried to deny that he was now in the "oh shit, he's hot" category while at the same time making sure every girl in the school knew he belonged to her alone. The day he snapped and loosed a lion's roar in her face was the day she decided she was going to bear the man's child, saying just that to his face. The dumbstruck look she had left him with the day she grabbed his coat and kissed the everloving breath out of him still made her giddy.
It still surprised her, now twenty years later, that he had confessed to her. The entire time, she worried he would deny her feelings for him due to her brash and crude behavior. He had instead nurtured and harbored a crush for her. He said that she was hot all fired up and that it showed a lion's heart. She said it had been her picking on the weak. They still disagreed.
The American Licensing Act that Japan was adopting was still new, with the Quirk Registry making headway. Now everyone was required to register their quirks like firearms. This made it easier on the police and the medical practitioners with quirk control; the police could now identify quirk crimes, and doctors, nurses, and paramedics could treat people that needed specific treatment due to their quirks.
With pro hero licensing still in its infancy, the government needed a social experiment that would
set a precedent. Children needed a firm place to learn how to be model citizens and the best of heroes, so the government reached out and got several veteran heroes with teaching degrees to come and teach the next generation. And so, Rokuoh and Jeri were offered scholarships to be part of the first class of the newly founded hero high school, Yuuei.
After three years of training and learning to go beyond their limits, to break free of their grounding shackles, Jeri placed fifth in the graduation tests while Rokuoh ended in the twelfth, and the pro- heroes King Lion Hero: Braveheart and the Queen Faerie Hero: Titania made their debut.
It was also when Rokuoh's war on shirts began.
On the day before Rokuoh's twenty-second birthday, she gave him the best gift she could: a son. When Takuya Leonhardt Hiraoka was born, something changed in her wimp-turned-hunk of a husband. He became more restrained, more protective, more loving. When Rokuoh held his son the first time, it was visible to her just how much his world's view had shifted. He let loose the most powerful proud daddy lion roar she had ever heard, announcing to the world that this was his son and He was here!
She tossed the bulky red duster she wore like a cape onto the chair as she walked past the foyer, groaning as she rolled her shoulders and flitted her prismatic wings as she walked. There was a shower calling her name and she was going to answer the call enthusiastically.
With limited flight and a form of sensory echolocation due to her mutation, she always was on call as a rescue hero for collapsed buildings, and today was going to haunt her. There had been a bomb that had been set off under an elementary school, collapsing the building and fueling her nightmares for the days to come. She had cried each and every time she pulled a child from the rubble, each time she saw Nana, Izumi, or her son's face on them. Just another day in the glamorous life of a hero.
A frantic beat on the door halted her shedding her costume's frayed sailor fuku, causing her to growl in heavy frustration as she tossed the garment into the laundry bin and went to give whoever had just interrupted her 'me time' a piece of her mind.
The Hiraoka estate was hidden in a forested recess in the mountains, with the entire main branch's home carved directly into the side of a small mountain by Rokuoh's ancestors. The woods surrounding the mountain expanded the entire estate, with each tree serving as a traditional marker for each family who was born to the clan. The land was wide and spacious, with more than enough room to train and run.
Interlopers and the rare government agent weren't unknown to them, however, as there had been several occasions where one of the workers had had to chase off squatters and guide lost campers back to the campgrounds. Rokuoh had had to be involved a few times when the trespassers decided to get physical.
She stomped heatedly to the door and snatched it open with a snarl, which dropped in confusion. There stood little Nana with her arms full of camping gear and Rokuoh standing behind her carrying what looked like a beaten and bloodied eight-year-old boy with green hair who looked like he was barely awake. She was pretty sure the kid was trying desperately not to look at her partially exposed torso (she had kept her sports bra on. She may be crude, but she wasn't a savage), judging by the pale blush on his face.
She gazed upon the tall form of her husband and arched one of her delicate eyebrows, a small part of her enjoying the way her fierce lion of a husband sweated nervously. Crossing her arms under her breasts, she leaned against the frame of the door, giving Rokuoh a mock glare, and asked, "Well?"
Nana looked between the two and, deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, went to stow away the camping gear.
"I-It's a long story, H-Hun." She rolled her eyes as she listened to her husband talk. She had given this man a child and he still acted like a stuttering virgin sometimes. The Number Fifty hero, and he still stutters before his wife. She closed her eyes and counted to ten before moving out of the way and stalking back to the bathroom for her shower and then decompression. This day had been too long and she desperately wanted that shower, a beer, and one of Rokuoh's wing massages.
Nana stared at the green-haired kid in thought while the young man lay passed out in one of her mentor's spare bedrooms. It still freaked her out that she could still feel the rushing tide of One for All calling, singing whenever she was near the boy. That was another thing that bothered her: Mr. Hiraoka had told her that to him, One for All felt like a large pond of raw untapped POWER and that she would be more powerful than he was, but the sheer depth of the ocean she felt? When she first felt the quirk, she had likened it more to that of a lake. Then the boy fell from the sky and now it felt more like she was trying to swim in the Pacific! It was unreal in comparison. So what had happened?
If this guy truly was the ninth holder, who was she going to choose to be her successor? What was that person like? What made her choose them? Who was the villain that had Leomeow-sensei
worried? Why would the big cat bring the boy to his house if this was a plot by said villain? Was it to lure the villain out so the King Lion Hero could beat them up and put them in prison?
She huffed. The boy had passed out shortly after being put into the bed, not that she could really blame him. All of his limbs were broken, and yet he had still fought through the pain to stay conscious. She wasn't going to get any answers from him right now. Rokuoh had followed his wife into the shower, and judging by the moans, he was giving Mrs. Punk Rock Fairy a wing massage, so no answers would be coming from him for a while. Rokuoh always had the dopiest look on his face when he gave Jeri her wing massage. Wait, the grown ups were busy! Time to blow this bad set up for a sappy shojo manga and go try out this power!
She snuck out of the house and ran back down the long winding path to the small ocean, the salty air winding through the oak trees. According to her mentor, each and every one of these trees were special, as it was considered a right of passage to the Hiraoka Clan to plant a tree as a young child and when it was grown enough, to carve one's name into the bark. She had felt special that she got to see them do the first part of the ritual with Takuya, rooting a small sapling beside Rokuoh's mighty oak.
Hitting the sand, she quickly kicked off her shoes and ran to the water's edge and stopped, breathing slightly fast. She loved the beach! It felt so open and free. She activated her quirk, Float, and basked in the environment, letting herself lift off of the sandy shore as weightlessness took over her.
A cold breeze curled across her thighs, snapping her out of her jubilant revelings and forcing her to open her eyes. A cold breeze caused her muscles along her back to tense with a shiver as she looked down and realized she was far too high. Her quirk had never let her ascend before, just hang in the air, so how was she three kilometers above the ground? Fear gripped her core tightly as she frantically tried to figure out a way down, yet the answers felt so far away, never presenting themselves. She began to spin and flip out of control and unintentionally released her quirk, falling with a panicked scream.
Rokuoh sighed happily as he held his sleeping wife to his bare chest. He had loved her since he first laid eyes on her in their adolescence and that love only grew more as the years went on. It amazed him sometimes just how dominant she had always been in their relationship, even when they were younger and she had "tormented" him. When he first saw her fierce drive and confidence brightly displayed in her fae-like eyes, he knew he was as smitten as a kitten. She had given him her life, her heart, her body and soul just as he did to her. She had loyally stayed with his dumb ass through everything: the death of his parents, the near extermination of his clan, and the death of
his mentor, Banjo. She would probably never know just how much she truly meant to him.
His thoughts turned to the green-haired boy who had fallen out of the sky. Theoretical time-travel was hard to believe or understand, with the plethora of theories and concepts. Rokuoh liked to think he was a smart man, but he could use someone smarter sometimes. Maybe the Shuzenji power couple? He probably should have called them when he brought the boy to his house, now that he was thinking about it. He had been so focused on his wife's pain, it had fully slipped his mind.
Dr. Shuzenji, M.D. was going to beat the fur off of him, he just knew it. Her husband, Dr. Shuzenji, PhD, however, would probably nerd out at the chance to observe the boy. Which might need his bringing them in on how he knew the boy was a time traveler. He closed his eyes with a groan as the thought occurred to him. He had met the Shuzenji through Nana, her being close friends with their daughter and their daughter's next door neighbor, though he had worked with Hakeru in his hero alias, Lethargy, several times, before the man hung up his cape to earn his doctoral degree in theoretical science with a focus on physics and chemistry.
Their Little Chiyo and neighbor Sorahiko were well on their way to becoming quite the cute couple, from the way things looked, and with Nana, they were practically an inseparable triad. Would Izuku fit in with them? They were probably going to need to give the boy a new identity, since technically he didn't exist (Rokuoh had checked that much), at least, for now. If there was a method to send him back to his present, they would have, no, need to focus on that. The longer the boy stayed in their present, the more theoretical danger they were in.
"It is simply not possible," the brown-haired doctor said with a grimace.
Well shit .
Rokuoh slumped hard against his chair when he heard Doctor Hakeru Shuzenji's proclamation. By force of necessity, he had had to include the two doctors into the secret of One for All and All For One, giving details he'd much rather keep close to the chest. The two doctors hardly blinked at being told there was a literal boogeyman hiding in Japan with the ability to hoard quirks. Rokuoh sipped his beer before taking a steadying breath.
"Please explain," he said with a frown.
"Well, from the boy's own story, if this is no fabrication, his timeline is, for lack of a better term, gone. His future doesn't exist. No matter which theory you use, linear or multiversal, the way he described it, there was a serious breach in the space-time barrier. Taking into consideration how
nature tries to fill voids, it theoretically would create a temporal vortex that would suck anything into the rift until the rift was sealed.
"From my understanding, the boy was caught in what essentially amounts to a feedback loop, which is probably what kept him alive. The working theory I have, evidenced by the unidentifiable energy that pulses alongside the energy you have identified as One for All—" he stopped for a moment to wet his lips "—is that he was somehow cocooned in temporal or quantum energy and that the energy of the stockpiling quirk acted as a sort of... lightning rod of sorts. It brought him to quite possibly the safest place it could in its past, where the temporal reverberations didn't reach.
"His exit, however, hypothetically would have left a form of scar in his time that, again with nature trying to fill a void, would eventually tear open in a much less controlled fashion. In short, his world, his life, his dimension, his future, or whichever we deem to term it, it's all erased. Trying to send him back could potentially be nothing more than an exercise in futility." Shuzenji leaned back against the chair with an exhale.
He looked over Rokuoh for a moment. "Simply put, think of the temporal rift as a fault line. By forcing the fault line open, it would essentially trigger a, for lack of a better term, temporal quake inside his former world. Mind you, this is merely theoretical and cannot be tested or proven.
"In the event that his world isn't gone, we have absolutely no possible discerned way to test a method of sending him home. In effect, he is stuck, a young man trapped out of time. Loathe as I am to say this, Roku—"
"I c-can't go home?" a solemn voice interrupted, making the two grown men wince slightly before turning to see the young, green-haired kid leaning on the wall for support, his face ghost white.
"N-No, that can't be true, it's gotta be a joke! I gotta go back, my mother is going to worry if I don't get back! I gotta go home! IgottagohomeIgottagohomeIgottagohomeIgottagohomeIgottagohomeIgottagohome..." The boy struggled to remain standing while his mind tried to process the news and tears began to stream from his eyes. Behind the boy, Hakeru's wife, Dr. Naoru Shuzenji, stood frowning at her husband. Rokuoh moved and snatched the boy up into a protective embrace, enveloping him tightly as the child began to teeter. He made sure to be careful and not upset the lad's still-broken arms.
Hakeru rushed over to his wife after one look at her pale complexion and, after getting a nod from Rokuoh, placed his hand on the Sixth's shoulder and began leeching his abundant energy and funneling it into Naoru. For Rokuoh, it may as well have been a drop in the ocean, but for the medical doctor, it felt like nine cups of triple shot espresso coffee suddenly decided to take effect all at once. Her pale skin quickly regained its color before flushing and she had to quickly make her husband end it before his hands began to bleed.
The boy didn't move, he didn't speak. He just sat in Rokuoh's embrace, staring into nothing. With Rokuoh's help, Naoru was able to use her quirk to finish healing his broken legs and arms. By the time she was finished though, she was clammy and cold, and her husband's hands had begun to bleed from the constant need of the vitality transfer. She helped the large anthropomorphic lion set the boy back on the bed where he sat staring at the ceiling with glassy eyes.
He stayed like that for weeks, barely eating or sleeping. Rokuoh was woken in the middle of several nights when his sensitive ears picked up the anguished sobs of the mourning child.
Not even having to fish a cursing, sputtering Nana out of the Pacific when she had decided to fly had Rokuoh close to as stressed out as the boy did. The time-traveler was devastated in such a way that Rokuoh didn't know what to do other than just to be there. He sat and held the boy tightly whenever the boy woke him during the night, hoping that his presence would help.
~Ever the crybaby, young Midoriya?~
Izuku's eyes snapped open. All around him was darkness, growing darker the further away from him that it got until it was as if he was staring into an abyss. Movement caught his attention as his teacher and predecessor, Toshinori Yagi, known to the world as All Might, stepped out of the emptiness in his thin skeletal form, a kind smile on his emaciated face. Izuku tried to speak, but he couldn't move his mouth and he began to panic. Frantically, All Might began to wave his hands, trying to calm the boy down.
~Woah, woah, easy kid! It's ok! Not because I am here, but because you still are!~ the skeleton exclaimed with a smile. The tall, thin man exhaled before looking at Izuku with a soft, caring smile. ~The reason you can't speak is due to how much of One for All you have to master. Right now, you have maybe 10% controllable without breaking your limp noodle bones. From what I understand, you won't be able to speak until you've mastered at least 50%. I think. To be honest, One for All is kinda screwy.~ The large man rubbed the back of his head.
~Look, I understand what you're going through. I understand why our power sent me to talk to you. When I was about your age, I lost everything when a villain targeted me to get to my mentor, who apparently was a tomboy tsundere when she was a kid. The more you know,~ the large man said with a laugh.
~Point is, I lost my parents, my siblings, my master, even the only friend I had back then, on that day. It was devastating. I lost the will to fight and felt empty and hollow.~
He reached out and plopped a large hand on Izuku's head. ~I understand that it feels like you finally got that spark of hope in your life after so many years of depression and despair, only for it to be ripped out of your hands by something far worse. Now you feel hopeless and alone. Kid, you will never be alone. For the eight of us are always with you. When you need advice, when you're at your lowest, ours will be the hands to raise you back up. We are One for All.~ All Might ruffled Izuku's hair with a grin.
~You've been given something I am truly jealous of, by the by: a chance to build your world from scratch. To remake the world bigger and better. Don't be me, the failed Symbol of Peace. No! Be the beacon that you are! Be the Beacon of Hope, Young Midoriya! Become the blinding, guiding light that humanity sorely needs!~
~It's ok to cry, for those who cry now smile all the more brighter! Mourn what you've lost, yes. Pour it out until you feel empty, then steel yourself in fierce determination!~
All Might pulled the weeping child into a tight embrace, placing a hand on the back of the boy's head. Izuku could feel seven other hands resting in other spots of his body. He heard all eight of them speak as one in a chorus:
~We will always be with you.~
Izuku woke with a soft sob and jerked when he saw Rokuoh already in the room with him, his face with that ever-present soft smile that was filled with kindness.
"I... I saw the previous holders," Izuku said with a sniff. The large lion hummed and moved to sit beside the boy, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"What did they say?"
"He... my teacher, he said to mourn, to grieve until I was empty, then to steel myself with
determination. My world may be gone, but this world's future isn't. I want to become a Beacon of Hope."
Rokuoh tilted his head and looked down at the boy, his eyes full of kind curiosity. "And what does that mean to you?"
"...Someone who shines brightly to inspire those around him. Lighting the way for the lost. I want to save people and give them hope for a better tomorrow!"
Rokuoh's smile brightened as he watched life enter the boy's eyes for the first time since he fell out of the timestream. "It is a good goal, but what are you going to do to make that a reality?"
The boy deflated. "I... I don't know."
"Well then. Perhaps now that li'l Masumi's punishment is over, we can get to that training. If you're gonna be a Beacon of Hope, you're gonna need to get a full grasp of your power, yeah?" He ruffled the boy's hair. "Your teacher was right though. Mourn your loss, but never let your grief destroy you. It is at our darkest moments when we learn how to move forward. So grieve, yes, but remember to take your step."
Izuku smiled slightly and gave a small nod, his swollen eyes ringed with red from the internal storm inside the boy, tears still silently leaking from them.
"Thanks, Mr. Hiraoka. I'll be in your care," the boy said with a sniff.
"Call me Rokuoh, kid. You're gonna be staying here for a bit, so quit it with the informality. I'm barely thirty, so just...yeah, call me Rokuoh. Or Six if you want."
"Yes si—" The door was kicked open with a loud bang, interrupting what Izuku was going to say.
"MY TIME IS NIGH, OLD MAN!" exclaimed the black-haired girl standing in the doorway holding a squirming koi.
Rokuoh looked over the boy as he stretched, noting how the lad's muscles twitched and tensed under his skin. The simple shorts that they had borrowed from Takuya hung loosely on his hips, reminding Rokuoh to call up their seamstress for some clothes for the boy. He looked over at Nana and did the same, glancing over her form as she stretched, her gym shorts holding tightly to her lithe hips that he occasionally caught Izuku glancing at. He could smell the teenage hormones coming off the two. It made him gag, honestly, like they really needed a bad shower.
"All right, you two. Remember, no quirks. This is only to see where you are, right now. Keep it clean. This means no punching in the nards, Nana. I read that school report. What you did to that poor Bakugou boy, while deserved, was too far. I'll be surprised if the poor lad can—" he stopped, noticing the look on Midoriya's face. "You knew a Bakugou?" he asked the boy, who nodded almost reverently. "Huh. Ok, color me surprised. Still! It was a step too far. So, simply put, don't."
He stood up and stepped between the two as they faced each other. "Ready?" an excited nod from Nana and a more hesitant one from Izuku was given as a response. "Hajime!" he exclaimed as he leapt back to watch.
He saw Izuku using some kind of bastardized form of fighting that resembled American boxing that did not fit Izuku's frame whatsoever, while Nana seemed to be trying to use the grace of the dance school her mother put her into (with much kicking, cussing, screaming, and biting from Nana), making Rokuoh believe that maybe some Capoeira would be a good fit for her. Maybe some old school American high flying lucha libre due to her quirk? To put it bluntly, they both sucked, but that was his job as a teacher: to make them not suck. It would be pointless if his students came to him already full of knowledge.
He did learn the Izuku was far stronger than his small frame implied; just how strong was the question. The boy was a thinker. His keen intellectual mind shone through his eyes as he studied Nana's movement. Double-edged, he took too long in thinking, only moving at the last second. He showed patience though; he knew how to take a hit and roll with the punches, and he did know how to throw a punch (sloppy and telegraphed though they were).
Nana, on the other hand, had grace, but no real physical strength, and was brash and impulsive with no thought given to strategy or discipline. She gave no time to read Izuku's very obvious tells, she just rushed in. Luckily for her, Izuku was such a novice that he couldn't take advantage of this. Or he held back. That concerned Rokuoh.
"Stop!" he called out in a loud roar, getting both of their attention. "I have seen enough. My honest opinion? The two of you suck. Izuku, you look like a wannabe American boxer with more tells than a stand-up comedian. You are hesitant and you are sloppy. It's good to think and analyze, but at some point you have to act. Whoever taught you how to fight should be ashamed of
themselves."
"No one did." The boy hung his head.
Rokuoh put his hand on the boy's head. "Well, that's going to change. I'll be teaching you some self-defense forms I want you to memorize deep in your muscles." Rokuoh glanced over at the lone girl. "Nana, for the love of all that is holy, think before you act! You could have floored him several times had you simply stopped to watch him! And the both of you! You've got feet, don't you?" Izuku jerked like he'd been slapped and looked at his feet in surprise. "It's all right though; this just means we have a starting point, something to work with," the manly lion said as he ran a hand through his mane of hair.
"Now, I want you to activate One for All. I need to see how far along you are, Izuku. Nana, I want you to remember that feeling you felt that day on the beach with the purple lightning. Try to bring it up to a point where it isn't painful for you. It sho—" Rokuoh stopped and stared at the green- haired boy, whose arm was beginning to purple. "Midoriya, who taught you how to summon One for All?"
The boy pointed at Nana. "Her successor."
Nana squawked and lost her concentration on her quirk, shooting herself high into the air like a rocket. Rokuoh sighed and held out his arm, snagging the girl before she hit the ground. "Why are you only focusing it on one part of your body? Do you not punch from the hip? Does your spine not pivot in the motion? Compressing all of that power into your tiny wet noodle arms is just asking for an injury! Spread it like butter, kid, crust to crust!" he yelled as he none too gently set Nana on the ground.
Izuku stared at him, then at his hand before descending in a muttering storm that Rokuoh couldn't follow. The big man blinked before looking at Nana, who just shrugged. He raised an eyebrow, which got her to quickly scamper back to her spot and concentrate on her power, purple sparks beginning to dance over her body. He looked back at Midoriya, who had his eyes closed and watched as green and white lightning bounced across the boy's skin.
Now they were cooking with crisco!
Chapter End Notes
Special thanks to Reaf Darksbane and Revion over in Epsi's Hoard, where I hang out. Look for the glow of my neon halo!
If you want a more direct way to find me, come on over to my server, Halo's Extreme Disconnect, we have Cinnabons
I left my wallet in the DeLorean again
Chapter Summary
Training future heroes is an exhausting chore.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Rokuoh stood with his arms crossed, watching the new One for All wielders struggle to drag the boulders he had them strapped to. He could remember when Banjō had him doing this exact training and wondered if his mentor had felt the amusement Rokuoh felt at this moment. He would cherish watching these two struggle to get through the introductory course for years to come.
He missed the loud, foul-mouthed asshole of a mentor sometimes.
Midoriya had impressed Rokuoh immensely, dragging a 136 kilo boulder with hardly a grunt. He'd done some form of weight training, but that obviously was piss-poor. While yes, it had conditioned his body to lift minorly heavy objects, it didn't allow the lad to use One for All in its extreme entirety. The boy needed far more strength and meat on his bones.
So Rokuoh set the boy up to join him on his and Jeri's work out, only to promptly have to carry the boy to finish the twelve mile run because he put everything into the first two miles. If he could meet Number Eight, Rokuoh would slap him. Why did no one think to teach the boy pacing? It was ridiculous! Then again, Nana only made five, so...
Ok, yeah, he had fucked up there. In his defence, Rokuoh'd been working more for her mental conditioning as opposed to her strength.
Early one morning, he sat both of them down and showed them how to properly stretch and guided them through the Rokuoh family yoga routine. Nana shone brightly during this exercise, her graceful and limber body easily working through the exercise. Midoriya, however...
To say he was less limber than a brick would be an insult to bricks.
After yoga was muscle work. They put weighted gear on all over their bodies, from weighted leg
bracers and gauntlets to a heavy vest. Each piece of gear sported dense metal bars in its pockets that could be interchanged for heavier bars later. Rokuoh was happily settled at the sum total of three hundred and eighteen kilograms displaced across his body. The man's muscles were vibrating in rapturous joy from the strain. He found Nana struggling to stand near the one hundred range just standing still, while Midoriya was straining closer to the two hundred range.
Once the weights were on, Rokuoh pushed them through the stances of a variation of the Hiraoka family heavy-fist style for an hour. This version was more suited for lightweight fighters, such as their bodies implied, as opposed to his heavyweight, dominant style. He couldn't teach them the true style of the main family, something Masumi desperately wished for as she wanted to learn the Fist of the Beast King.
After they finished with the forms, he had them drop the weight gear and stretch again before giving them an hour to rehydrate and rest before going back through the stances, kicks, and punches in a mass suit for resistance training. After he had them finish that, they were to drag a small boulder up an incline.
Rokuoh believed deeply that each exercise should work the whole body evenly, not just one group a day, spreading the stress so that the rewards were more sweet. Muscle work on odd days, cardio and stamina for the even ones.
To the teens, it was a brutal hell that had even Midoriya cursing with enough vulgarity to make a sailor blush. For Rokuoh, however? For Rokuoh, it was just another Monday. Not even Jeri could keep up with his strenuous punishment, opting to take a more cardio-focused exercise, which wasn't an option for the two One for All holders. He could see it was sticking in Nana's craw that Midoriya could do more than her, making her push herself further and harder.
Workouts aside, he had taken to schooling the boy-out-of-time in the current hero laws and etiquette, finding out quickly that the boy not only was an avid note taker, but was an incredible analyst. The boy quickly deduced how Rokuoh and Jeri could use their original quirks in ways they had never even thought of. Rokuoh's lion's roar, for example, being a sound-based ability, could work as a beacon of sorts for lost hikers, while Jeri's ability to send out a form of vibration pulses at a frequency normal humans couldn't feel could theoretically be used like a lithotripter. By using
the pulses in fast and heavy beats, she could theoretically break objects like rocks or debris.
Jeri had been stunned when she had heard this and had immediately tested it on a small rock. That had been... explosive, to say the least. Rokuoh had been quickly reminded that fast-moving rocks hurt and that he should avoid them at all possible moments, the memory etched into his hard skin by a jagged cut along his brow.
Presently, he had Midoriya doing death crawls blindfolded. Rokuoh had once seen a pre-quirk
movie that showed him something he had never thought of: mental limitations. The body could easily be more than capable of doing a job, but if the mind said it couldn't, the body would believe it and give up before the job was complete. This was something Midoriya needed desperately to learn.
The boy was so full of self-doubt and low confidence that he would never reach his goal unless Rokuoh did something about it. So here he was, crawling beside Midoriya, shouting encouragements each time the boy said he couldn't do it, trying to breath confidence in the boy. Five more meters was ten meters ago. Rokuoh wanted the boy to see he could do more, be more
When the boy yelled about the pain, Rokuoh was there, pushing him, encouraging the boy. When the boy finally collapsed, the first thing Rokuoh did was cut the ties and throw the one hundred and twenty kilo boulder off of the boy's back so the kid could breath, then lay down in front of the boy and gently slide the blindfold off of his face.
"Welcome to the southern property line, young Midoriya. I want you to remember this moment. Etch it into your memory. You just carried a hundred and twenty kilos for two hectometers. That's more than two American gridiron fields, my young friend. Each step had your mind saying you couldn't, your doubt said you couldn't, your past said you couldn't, and yet here we are.
"When you're at that limit, when your mind is saying it can't, you push forward anyways. You reach down into that gut of your and dig deep. Roar with the fury of a lion! Go beyond that limit!"
Midoriya stared hard at Rokuoh from where he lay collapsed on the ground, panting and shivering. "So... plus... ultra?"
Rokuoh roared out a laugh and gently picked up the boy. "Aye, plus ultra! Never let your doubts rule you; never say 'I can't.' The day you stop pushing your limits is the day you die. Now mind you, I don't want you to break yourself either. There is a fine line between ignoring your mental limitations and ignoring your body's hard limits."
That had seemed to help Midoriya. Nana, on the other hand, needed a different approach. She was cocky, impatient, headstrong, willful, and hyper. She didn't need confidence, she needed patience. So he had her out fishing with him, learning meditation and breathing, or just simply working on a complex puzzle or playing chess with Rokuoh, Jeri, or Takuya when he wasn't out with his friends.
Rokuoh wanted her to look before she leaped, in a manner of speaking, to give quick rational thought to her actions before she moved. That wasn't to say he wanted the young teen to not move heroically; it was that heroic instinct that always caught the attention of elder One for All wielders.
No, Rokuoh wanted to temper it with logic, reason, and most of all, patience .
However, getting the girl to sit still was like trying to pull his teeth: painful and annoying. She just had too much energy. No matter what he did to bleed off the excess, she always seemed to have more! His loving wife had just laughed it off and told him to wait a couple of days, confusing the hell out of the lion.
After almost exactly one week, Rokuoh understood and decided Midorya deserved more focus for a time. Let it be recorded the feminine fury during her cycle and One for All was a fatal combination.
Even after the week, the lingering scent of blood in the house still made him gag, leaving him to wonder why his wife of many years didn't leave the same odor when she cycled.
It was bad enough that Rokuoh had to start the quirk training outside while the family staff aerated the mountain carved house. By making it a camping trip, he was able to speed more time over the weeks to work with the children as winter ended and gave way to spring.
Training One for All was a different process for each child. Midoriya kept trying to slap on weird metaphors that made absolutely no sense, while Nana kept trying to overdo it and accidentally— cough on purpose cough— jetting herself into the stratosphere when she lost focus. He saw the grins the precocious tomboy hastily tried to hide.
In Midoriya's case, Rokuoh had to break apart the metaphor the boy had built up, something about an egg in a microwave, and instead make him think more like a heat lamp with a dimmer switch. The dimmer dial controlled the output of heat the lamp gave off, but it was spread evenly over the kid's body.
In Nana's case, Rokuoh had to pay attention and catch her before she hit the ground. There had been a few times where he had considered letting her hit the ground so she would learn to catch herself.
It had initially baffled Rokuoh when Midoriya had asked him why it took so long to turn it on and off, as if it wasn't always active.
Insert minor flashback
Both Nana and Rokuoh gave him odd looks before it clicked.
"Before Eight passed the torch, you were quirkless?" the lion asked, only to immediately regret it when the boy drew into himself with an apologetic muttering storm.
Rokuoh sighed and plopped a hand on the boy's head. "Look kid, I wasn't hatin on you. Quirkless or not, your predecessor saw something in you and I think I see it too. You don't just simply turn quirks on or off, they're always on. It's the how and why the body adapts to the quirks."
The sixth wielder looked at Nana. "When you meet Eight, you better remember to tell him that."
Exit minor flashback, stage left.
Since then, the Shuzenji doctors became a constant fixture at the Hiraoka house, as Midoriya was constantly waking up with broken bones or other injuries. This was due largely in part to Rokuoh telling him not to turn One for All off. It took many a moon to get the boy adapted to the constant presence of One for All's awesome power, with many minor things being bent or broken. However, by the end of March, the green-haired boy finally had it in his subconscious and muscle memory.
Then came a new worry.
"So to sum it up, as of right now there is no way to pass him off as either a Midoriya or a Hikitsuga. The Midoriya head refuses to claim the boy, and the Hikitsuga family just laughed at the thought."
Rokuoh sighed as he listened to Dr. Shuzenji (M.D.) talk. They needed a legal way to create an identity for Midoriya. As it was, by law Midoriya didn't exist. This fact was both good and bad. Good in the fact that by being a non-entity, there were no crimes to be applied to the boy. Bad in the fact that there was absolutely no history to be applied to the boy either.
Rokuoh thought quietly as he looked at the power couple, both highly respected doctors in their fields. He had an idea, but he would have to run it by his own brood as well as Midoriya first before he took action. He knew a guy who was in the... semi-legal business of helping people hide under new identities, and Rokuoh could make it so Midoriya was his deceased older cousin's unborn child. Morally grey, but hard to overturn without trespassing on Hiraoka lands and entering the crypts. In a sense, they would literally be adopting Midoriya as a Hiraoka and creating him a usable identity.
The problem was, it would probably cost a small fortune, and he didn't know how Midoriya would react. However, with the new school year starting in the next month, Rokuoh needed a way to cement an identity for the lad. He pitched the idea to the doctors, who were watching their daughter giggle at something Nana had said to Sorahiko while Midoriya looked on with an awestruck look on his face.
"It could work, but how would that play out in family dynamics? I'm assuming it would place him somewhere in the branch line, yes?" Naoru asked, turning her azure eyes to the lion.
"Not really. While yes, essentially it would make him part of a branch of my family tree, there isn't enough of the Hiraoka blood left after that Todoroki monster attacked us to consider having a main line or a cadet line."
"Ah yes, I had read about that," Hakeru said with a look at the lion.
"Yes, well, at least you bloodied the Todoroki clan's figurative nose in court. Let us return to the topic at hand, however. Your cousin, her family married into the Hiraoka clan, yes? What was their surname?" questioned Naoru with a huff, not wanting to go over the dark topic.
Rokuoh didn't respond at first, staring into the amber liquid in his hand, pain flickering in his deep set eyes. "Nozomi. Written with the kanji for 'hope.'"
"Hmm. What kanji does he use to spell 'Izuku'?" Naoru asked, cupping her chin in thought. "Come out (出) and long time (久), from what he says," Rokuoh said.
"Ah. So if you read it properly, you could have it spelling 'the coming out of the long-awaited hope'?"
Rokuoh stalled for a moment before looking to the medical woman with wide eyes. He hadn't thought about the meaning of the name. With what the young man said he was going to strive to be, maybe.
He opened the door and looked out to where Jeri was sitting on the patio and then hollered out to
Midoriya to get his attention. This in effect got everyone to jump slightly as they turned to look at the lion.
"S-sir?" the freckled boy asked with a stutter, looking up from the notebook he was writing in, his eyes wide like a squirrel ready to bolt.
"I would very much like it if you and my wife would join me inside. The doctors and I have something to discuss with you."
Sorahiko Torino watched the boy enter the house with Mrs. Hiraoka with narrowed eyes. Everyone else had practically adopted the boy, even the adults, but Sorahiko could smell something fishy hidden. He had been friends with Nana since they were children, so he could see from her facial expressions that she knew what was going on, and while she seemed more willing to accept the boy, Sorahiko didn't. He didn't trust the boy, and yet, here he was, receiving the same training from the Hiraoka clan head that Nana was.
"All right Nana, spill. Who's the kid?"
Crimson eyes snapped open as a bolt of electricity shot through their owner's body. The pupils widened and adjusted to the dimly lit room. The figure leaned his head to the side, and a loud pop resonated from the middle of his neck as he stood up from the throne-like chair he had previously been reclining in. The dark silhouette walked to the window and pressed a gloved hand against the glass, a sinister smile spreading across his face, his teeth glistening in the moonlight that just barely lit the figure's broad shoulders and caused his white hair to gleam slightly. Behind him, light flared across the room as a screen by his chair sprang to life..
"So, little brother has a new successor hmm? How marvelous. I was growing bored with the cat's paltry attempts at revenge anyways. How long have I been asleep, I wonder?"
With a slight push of his hand, the glass exploded into silicate grains and fell to the floor as the man slowly hovered out into the night air.
"Hmm. Two? Is that possible? No, the second one is different. It feels... more evolved. And what's this? What is this curious energy attached to it?" the man asked aloud as the wind ruffled the tails
of his sparrow-cut tuxedo tailcoat.
It had been a full century now since his little brother had led his pathetic rebellion against the man. A full century since he had discarded the name he was born with and took on the mantle of All for One, the once and future owner of all quirks and the world itself. He already owned the Japanese criminal underground and ruled it with sadistic glee. Whatever he wanted was his for the taking; if it looked good, felt good, or tasted extravagant, it was already his. He only had to claim it. Money, women, men, quirks—they all came flocking to suckle on his power, his divinity. Ants bowing to a deity.
He learned quite early of his rising divinity. He learned early that there was nothing he could ever want for as it already belonged to him. After all, a god does not need to beg for scraps when he can simply will it to be his. Long ago, he had tried to share this world with his flesh and blood, but the fool chose to live amongst the mortal ants.
Time and again his little brother's power appeared to fight against his exalted rule. To rebel, like a dog biting at the hands of its master. He allowed it, as it was something to entertain him, but sooner or later, he would crush the power under his heel and bring it under his control, it was simply... inevitable.
There was no force on this planet capable of defying him unless he was bored. After all, he simply was unable to die. Death itself fled from the man's presence in fear. Perhaps it was time to remind the world that their God was still amongst them.
Starting with a popular little fairy who needed her wings clipped. Chapter End Notes
Shout out to Raef Darksbane for beta'ing and editing.
Chapter Summary
Don't Drop the Banana
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." --George Santayana
Chapter Notes
Special thanks to 0bservanc3 and Reaf Darksbane over in Epsi's Hoard, where I hang out. Look for the glow of my neon halo!
If you want a more direct way to find me, come on over to my server, Halo's Extreme Disconnect
we have Cinnabons
See the end of the chapter for more notes
A hand slamming down on her desk jarred Nana out of her thoughts. Jerking her amethyst-colored eyes up, she glared at the queen bee that had plagued her life since daycare. Akahime Katsuri, the red-haired gyaru queen bitch of the school. Ever since she learned she could use her pheromones to entice males and lower their inhibitions, she had set out to make the life of anyone who didn't kiss her ass a living hell.
She truly was the worst in Nana's eyes, controlling people as she did. Her go-to was to have the larger males bully the smaller ones or the ones with the willpower to resist her into obeying her. Heck, even the principal wasn't immune. Nana had tried to go to the police, the principal, anyone she thought could help. It never helped; as soon as Akahime sent the pheromone out, the weak minded became her worker bees.
The queen bee had even shown up at Nana's home one day, posing as a friend when her mother had answered the door, believing she could control Nana's father. When she had discovered that Nana's father had died in the Quirk Riots, she hadn't been able to get away fast enough. It had been a pleasant week of silence after that. The bitch had left her alone and Nana had ignored her.
Well, the other shoe always drops.
"So, Airhead. What's this I hear about you applying to Yuuei? You know, the school full of heroes who won't be up for some... sneaky fun on the side?"
Gods, her voice was annoying. Nana stared at the redhead for a long moment, hearing Leomeow- sensei in her head going on about not letting words get to you while making the impatient teen huff. "Well? You gonna fucking answer or did a breeze knock your thoughts off course again?"
Nana raised her brow. "I was trying to figure out why it was any of your business."
The red princess giggled. "Of course it's my business, silly. Everything that goes on in this school is. Then again, with your paltry quirk, what could you do as a hero exactly? Float away from the villains?"
"Least I'm not the one pretending to be a perfume bottle."
"Oh, my! The floating whore thinks she's got claws. Neji, Kiba? Fix that, won't you, dears?"
Akahime snapped her fingers with a cruel smirk. After a few minutes, the smirk became a frown across her punched face. She turned angrily to look for her two meat-headed book ends only to find they weren't behind her as they were supposed to be.
"Lose something, princess?" Nana snickered, having paid the boys earlier in the week to cash in a sick day on the final day of term. It hadn't taken much to bribe the boys. Not to mention, if her luck held true, she'd never see the three of them again for the rest of her life.
"This isn't over, Landing Pad," the queen bee snarled as she turned to sneer at Nana.
"Really, Crimson Waste? It's the last day of the last year for us at this secondary school. Pretty soon, you'll be just a forgotten bit of unpleasantness for me and everyone else. Even if I don't make it into Yuuei, this," Nana gestured between her and the redhead, "is over."
"It isn't over until I say it is, Gorilla Queef, and I—"
"Nana Masumi, your dojo master is waiting for you at the school gates. Your test scores will be posted later in a week," the intercom suddenly burped out in a haze of static. Nana instantly stood up and began to collect her books, only for them to be slapped out of her hands.
"I was talking to you, Flighty."
"Were you? Cause I was done listening."
"I think you need to be reminded just who owns your life. Like, the only way you'd ever get close to being a hero is on your back as a train of them tries to enjoy your gaping cunt. That is if you beg me to let you, of course." The little hairs on the back of Nana's neck bristled and she rolled left like Leomeow-sensei taught her, dodging a meaty swing from Choji, the rotund of the class, his hands expanded in the use of his quirk. His eyes were dazed in a clear sign he was under the influence of Akahime.
Akahime giggled mockingly at her. "What? Did you think Neji and Kiba were my only muscles? Please. I own this school, I own the students, I. Own. You. The sooner you figure that out, Cloudface, the sooner you kiss the holy ground I walk on and we can get on with our lives."
Nana stared at the teen in disbelief. Was she insane? The tingling on her neck had her charging One for All through her body and catching an enlarged fist from the fat kid. With a twist and shout, the fat boy slammed hard onto the floor with a pop as a joint was dislocated.
"Something you overlook each and every time we do this..." Nana trailed off as she cracked her knuckles while standing up straight. In a blink of an eye, Nana was in front of Akahime with her fist in the queen bee's stomach, causing the pheromone controller to violently reenact the Exodus via her stomach.
"I'm stronger than your bitches. I break your so-called 'muscle' each and every time you send them." Nana straightened up and dusted off her hands before grabbing her books off the floor.
She stopped just before the door and glared down at the redhead. "Just for the record, Nohara has recorded this whole interaction. She has already sent the video to everyone: teachers, our peers, family. Your whole shebang here? Ruined. You try to cause a stink? I got your number and can press charges. Leave me alone, this will go nowhere. Fuck with me again and I will bring you to your knees. Have a nice life!"
"You were sloppy, little Masumi. You didn't get One for All to spread fast enough and stretched the tendons in your hand when you caught the punch. And that judo throw? Amateur. All in all?" Leomeow-sensei glared at her with his arms crossed over his chest, the lines of his mouth pressed firmly into a scowl.
Nana fidgeted in place as she waited for her mentor to finish. She should've handled the whole situation better, but she'd lost her cool towards the end and might have hurt poor Choji when she slammed him into the gr—
"All in all, I'd say I'm hecking proud of you."
Ok what? Nana looked up at her teacher in disbelief.
Leomeow-sensei scratched his neck. "I won't say it was perfect, but you tried, yeah? You didn't initiate the fight, but when blows were thrown, you only did enough to end it quickly and efficiently. You were sloppy and ungainly, but you were patient and waited. That's what I've been trying to teach you, patience. The art of letting the fight come to you."
The young teen stared at the large Lion-man unblinking for a moment, letting her mind process the information through her stunning confusion.
"You're ready. I've signed the reference forms needed for you to take the entrance exam to Yuuei." The Lion stood proudly as he smiled at Nana, ruffling her hair.
"What about Izuku?" Over the last few months, the now-named Izuku Nozomi, time traveler extraordinaire, had trained beside her, giving her a partner in crime, as it were. She had watched him as he tore down the shoddy, shaky foundation he had built up and tried to rebuild himself into a better person, flourishing under the smiling eyes of their sensei. She didn't want to leave that kind of guy behind.
The Lion placed a large, calloused hand on her crown and ruffled her hair. "He's going to be fine. Kid's made to be a hero. If anything, he has the heart of a lion. Heck, he may even outdo your exam score."
Nana huffed. "Oh please. As if that twig could outdo me."
Rokuoh just laughed as the sun began to set behind the master and student pair.
Nana stepped onto the main campus grounds and stared up at the large main building as it gleamed before her. Yuuei, Japan's best and first school for hero training. If she graduated from here, she'd get her license to be a hero on top of the accolades that come from being a Yuuei graduate. She looked at her best friends as they stood around her, lost in the splendor of the vision before them. It still irked her that Sora and Green Bean had grown some more, standing taller than she currently did.
Green Bean didn't look worried, which was aggravating all on its own. It was as if he knew what was coming, but knew without a doubt he could handle it. She gave him a slight glare as she hooked her arm with the giggling Chiyo and floated away before the boys came back to their senses.
The written test was far easier than she'd expected, but then the four of them had spent the last week cramming until midnight (Green Bean had been more interested in talking about their quirks and theorizing how they could use them better until Sorahiko had chewed him out for not taking things seriously).
Once time was called and all those who failed were culled from the herd of aspiring heroes, they were separated into different groups of twenty people and led to a large, cube-like, white three- story building. Standing in front of the only visible door was a man in a gold bedazzled suit with a robotic helmet that displayed computer emojis on its face plate. She could feel the excitement coming from her hero-obsessed time-traveling friend as he seemed to vibrate in place when he saw Hibiki Jiro, the charismatic hero: Visor. Once everyone in their group had gathered at the door, the bedazzled robot gave them an ecstatic emoji.
"Welcome! Welcome Hero aspirants! Behind me is the test roulette. Each test is to ascertain your heroic potential. You will be judged by a number of points, and to those who do not make thirteen hundred points, we hope you have the best future. Sadly, it won't be here! Now, once you hear your name, enter the door and immediately turn left. You have ten minutes to complete each area, but only forty-five to complete all five courses. If you exceed the ten minutes, you will be escorted off the course and into an observational area. This means you failed, in case you were wondering."
One of the group with the number CT-7567 raised his hand, getting a nod from Visor. "How will the points be distributed?"
Visor clapped his hands together as the w emoji appeared on his mask. "I am happy you asked that question!" he exclaimed. As he clapped, the shock wave from the gesture sent a few people in the front of the group flying back into the people behind them. "Hehe... whoops," he said, scratching the cheek of his mask. "Right! So, each course is a scenario set up to test your skills. There are objectives marked with how many points they're worth. There will be multiple objectives to deal with within the ten-minute time frame. Everything else is up to you to figure out."
There was some muttering from the crowd before one kid stepped forward. Dressed in an orange track suit and with bright blond hair, he slammed his fist into the opposite hand with a sunny smile of confidence. "I can take anything you throw at us, because I'm gonna be"
"Aaand you fail." "...what?"
"Yeah, CT-1010, you failed the written test. You're not even supposed to be here. How did you even get here?"
"Moxy?" "Security!"
Once his name was called, Izuku rushed in, barely feeling the pulse of One for All under his skin anymore as he kept it at a minimal percentage. Forcing himself to skid to a halt, he still slapped his face into a sheet of tempered translucent crystal.
Scolding himself for forgetting what the instructor said, Izuku began to move warily through the darkened hallway, watching for any more detours that would impede his movements. With his verdant eyes alert, he navigated around what looked like traps set in the floor and along the walls, some raised like pressure plates as he completed his trek to the only door in the hall, slightly illuminated by a soft red light.
Gently grasping the door, he pulled it towards him slowly so as to not alert anyone of his presence,
and peeked into the room. He could hear some scurrying around and quick foot falls pattering through the room. Gently as he could, he dove behind a crate and took in the room.
As his eyes adjusted to the higher level of light, he saw the long plaster walls bordering the room covered in graffiti and gang symbols. He was squatting on what looked like a facsimile of a loading dock with thick pillars holding up the high ceiling. On the lower surface, he saw four men that looked like they were heavily armed with another, a large silver man with shades and a mafia outfit straight out of the 1960's. If Marlon Brando had had metallic skin, this guy would have been a dead ringer.
The metallic mafia man sat on a heavy metal chair with his elbow cocked out on the armrest, supporting his head as he talked to someone on the phone, pausing every now and then to kick the bound woman at his side.
He looked the woman over and tried to remember the triage lessons Jeri had forced him through, eying the angry red and purple bruising on her cheek, the glassy eyes, bent leg and swollen arm.
Bruising on cheek and glassy eyes, possible concussion.
Bent leg, broken tibia.
Swollen arm with bruising, possibly broken...ulna? No! Humerus.
He quickly eyed the four men and the pillars. He needed to be fast about this, act before they could react. Charging his Full Cowl, as he was calling it now, to twenty percent, he twitched as the energy bounced across his skin furiously, and waited. When the guards aligned just right, he moved, exploding out of his hiding spot and off the pillars, delivering hard snap kicks to the guards' heads as he ricocheted around the room in a green blur like he'd seen Sorahiko do when Sora and Nana sparred. Before they had even hit the ground, he had the woman in his arms and held securely to his chest, and was out the exit.
Over the earpiece the instructor had given each of the test takers, he heard the static voice of Visor asking for a status, which he replied to with a list of her apparent and not-so apparent injuries. Once he finished listing them, the woman "woke up" and pulled the ropes off her wrist, showing the elasticity of the very convincing bindings before ripping the tape from her mouth with a grunt.
"Damn it, Visor, you could have warned me of another speedster. The last one nearly ripped my
head off when he came through!" she all but yelled into her comm. She sighed, and before Izuku's eyes, her leg liquefied and straightened out before it reconstituted into flesh and bone, wigging Izuku slightly.
"All right kid, take this and go down the hall and take a right," the woman said as she handed him a token with the number 90 on it.
Still kind of bothered by the liquefaction of her leg, though enamored by how cool it was and full of possibilities for the quirk, Izuku slowly nodded and began to walk down the hall, looking back now and then in astonishment, making the procter laugh before she walked back into the testing room. As he was walking away, he heard her bark out, "All right you troglodytes! Back to your stations!"
Reaching the end of the hall with a door bathed in green light, he took the right and went up some stairs, preparing himself for the next test, wondering what it was going to be like. What he wasn't expecting was a room filled with some of the previous test takers, including Nana, who was sitting on the floor. When she noticed him and smiled, he walked over to her and took the water bottle she offered him.
"How do you think you did?" she asked, leaning forward to look up into his eyes.
He stared into her warm amethyst eyes for a moment, fixating on them and marveling at their color. Her short, pixie-cut hair glistened in the room's light, and although some strands stuck to her forehead from sweat, they did nothing to diminish how pretty she looked. The contrast of color was soft but sharp, just like her. Izuku noted that he had been staring at her, making him turn and look away with a light blush on his cheeks.
Nana patted the floor next to her, inviting him to sit and drink. Izuku was sitting before he could stop himself. Nana was... Nana. A hurricane of energy, laughter, and joy. Strong, confident, beautiful, everything he wasn't. In a way, she reminded him of how Katsuki was before the ash blond developed his quirk and became... Katsuki.
All these thoughts clashed together, stalling the processing power of his brain for a moment, before the gears began to click and turn again.
'Is this what a crush feels like?' Needless to say, he was screwed.
A soft tap on his shoulder snapped him out of his reverie as he turned to look back at the object of his thoughts.
"Hey, dumbass, I asked you something," Nana said exasperatedly, though the smile on her face gave away that the insult held no heat.
'Quick brain, give me something smooth and cool! ' He shouted in his mind. "I-I-I-I-I-I..." he stuttered.
'Thanks brain, always can count on you,' he thought with a sigh.
~You could just, I dunno, answer her?~ came a female voice laced with sarcastic exasperation, causing him to jerk slightly. ~Wait too long, she's going to think you did terribly and it'll kill the mood.~
'Oh... right. Who are you?'
~Technically I'm the girl sitting beside you. One for All is weird.~
"I uh... I think I did ok?" He scratched his head. "I did everything that master Rokuoh told me to do: evaluate, subdue, secure."
~Am I being ignored?~
'No, I'm still trying to come to terms that you're in my head and talking next to me at the same time.'
~Time Variation. Technically, I'm the Nana that grew up in your timeline. Which was erased, so... I'm what she could be, I guess.~
His eyes widened, 'Wait, does that mean Rokuoh is here too?!'
~ Let's talk later, kid. I'm talking to you.~
"— and then I punched him in the dick so hard he crapped himself. It was awesome! Oi, Green
Bean, you ok? You look kind of pale."
"Oh! Um... okay, this may sound weird, but my quirk is talking to me."
Nana squinted at him for a moment before her eyes widened. "What is it saying?"
"Mostly it's just commenting on my performance," he answered back vaguely, hearing a boisterous laughter that almost sounded musical.
"Oh... Oooh. That's not fair," she said, blowing out her cheek in a cute pout. "You being able to talk with your quirk is almost like a cheat code."
~Girl, I am the ultimate game breaker!~ came Shimura's voice, making Izuku snort.
Nana leaned in closer, "What'd it say?"
~ooo! Quick kid, say "it said the Crimson Contortion could beat Ice Kite in a fight anyday.~
'What? But—"
~Trust me. ~
"Um... ok? It said to tell you that it is both the ultimate game breaker and that Crimson Contortion could beat Ice Kite in a fight."
"Oh that is straight bullshit! Contortion only can bend her body into pretzels, Kite can create wings of ice! All he has to do is drop something heavy on her and boom, fight over!"
"I take it you're a fan?"
Nana froze and nodded slightly, scratching her cheek. "I'm uh... I'm kinda a hero nerd. I used to love to replay the footage of old fights and pretend I was in them when I was a kid. Kinda how Leomeow-sensei found me, actually."
Izuku's eyes widened, "No way! I used to do that all the time too, I would dress up like All Might and pretend to save my mom. Heck, I used to try and theorize heroes' quirks and how they're uniforms helped them." He stopped for a moment and looked down, wondering if he should tell her about how had he not received One for All, he had considered going into costume design in the support course.
~Shit, kid. That's some baggage.~
He looked up when he felt hands on his knee and jerked back with a squeak as he saw how close Nana's excited eyes were to his own.
"Do you think you could help me design my costume?" she asked excitedly.
~Do it, or I'm going to sing the song that never ends for a month!~
Izuku gave rapid-fire nods, making Nana jump up with a loud, "YES!"
"What has you so excited, Masumi? You look like Christmas came early," came a feminine voice behind them, making them turn around to see a still smoking, burned Chiyo Shuzenji who looked like she'd just walked through a volcano. Both Izuku and Nana stared at her for a moment before Nana recollected herself.
"Green Bean said he'd help with my costume design!" she practically shouted.
"Jeez, kid, you're loud. Sit down, shut up, and quit jumping around" the proctor said as she walked into the room, leading Visor, the metallic mafia boss and the four men dressed as goons (one with a noticeable bow-legged limp.) As soon as she walked in, the noise level dropped significantly as eyes turned to her as she stopped at the front of the room.
"For those who don't know me, I am the Water Hero Liquididot. Yes, it's a play on the German word for liquidity. No, I don't give a rat's ass what you think about it, moving on. If you are in this room, it means you've been run through the filter, some for sheer firepower, others for meeting the requirements. The token I gave each of you represents your grade for this test. This score will be coupled with your written exam to determine your standing in the rankings.
"Now, let me be clear; all of you, with the exception of three people, very nearly failed this course. Only two of you got above a sixty and only one got a ninety. That said, we can work with that, teach you how to do it right, build you to be better. So let me be the first to welcome each and every one of you to your hero academia!" she exclaimed, throwing her hand up in the air and striking a pose.
Only one person was clapping until Nana stopped Izuku's hands, everyone else just looked confused. A boy with long red hair and sharp teeth raised his hand. Liquididot cleared her throat and muttered something under her breath before looking at him and then down to her list. "Yes, Mr... Jiro Saito?"
"Ma'am, we were told that we were going to be sent through five courses, not one, at the start of this," he said in a deeper voice than his small frame implied.
"Right, but were you told that they were all going to be during the entrance exam? Over the course of your first year, you will be given tests to truly determine your place as a hero. This is only the first, the headwaters of your river, so to speak. You'll go through some turbulent tides, obstacles in your way, and probably combine with some other flows before you reach the mouth and float into the open sea. Up to you whether you erode through the stones that block your way or dry up and evaporate.
"Look around you, each of you will be working together for the next three years as Hero Course 1- B, or H1-B for short. Your next test will be during the Sports Festival, where you'll have to defend your hero course spot against those who didn't make the cut here and want to prove they can rejoin the winding waters. Until then, learn what you can, grow together, and for crying out loud, take a shower!
It had begun as a simple rescue mission. Eighteen hikers had been caught in the collapse of a cliffside and buried under about ten feet of loose gravel and large rocks, and the natural disaster had spilled over the road below and blocked traffic. Rescue teams had already found six of them, helicoptering the fortunate souls to the nearest emergency centers.
Jeri wiped the sweat from her face as she rested, taking a swig of water as she splayed her legs out before her, trying to let her feet relax. Since she had arrived on site, she had been ferreting back and
forth endlessly, causing her skin to roll and bleed as she pushed her quirk to the max to see through the rubble to find the survivors. Whenever she located one, she broke the rocks into smaller portions and did her best to dig the person out. It was slow, it was tedious, but it was her job and she loved it. The smile on people's faces when they were reunited with their loved ones always made her day.
'Of course, the inverse is always true as well,' she thought as she looked over to the three bodies covered by shrouds. She hadn't been able to get to them in time. She bit back a curse as she tried to put weight back on the soles of her feet. Always the feedback.
Her wings flitted on her back in agitation as she forced herself to stand. She had to keep moving; she could rest her feet when all of the victims had been found. As she walked back to the area, lit with large emergency spotlights, she sent pings through the earth with every step, feeling and reading the vibrations on their return. She could see several black spots beckoning to her and she immediately began to clear a path to them.
Her quirk, while useful in these situations, was annoying to understand. Her pings traveled roughly near the speed of sound, mapping anything they touched along the way, but air was harder to see through, creating distorted black spots that gave her headaches to try to understand. It was akin to trying to look into a murky lake to see what kind of fish there were. You know there are fish there, you know how big some are, but you don't see with crystal clarity. Since the pings were essentially a high frequency sound wave, they traveled easily through solid matter and liquids just fine, bouncing back with high definition. It made her the on-call expert for rescue jobs like this one.
The worst problem wasn't the air though. It was the friction the vibrations caused in her skin, the feedback. Even with rough calluses, the friction would cause her skin to blister and bleed if she used her quirk too much, as she was doing now.
It took several more hours to clear the site, even with the help of the Emergency Crew, the local hero group that lived nearby. Sure, super strength, super speed, and liquefaction helped, but the three heroes mostly just made things worse by shifting the load bearing rocks due to inexperience. She opened up more sores on her feet when Lughead, the super strong one with the metal jaw, shifted a large boulder, again, and would have caused another rockslide had she not sent a pulse to resettle the sediment. She could feel blood filling her boots as she continued to overuse her quirk, the feedback tearing her skin as it speared into her nerves. She had been at this for too long, directing the crews and heroes while using the vibrations to break down the freer rocks as well as settle the other heroes' mistakes.
Long story short, she was tired.
She was exhausted to the point that she barely noticed the way the air behind her seemed to ripple.
She never saw the beady eyes leering at her, nor the arms that reached out of the warped space until they wrapped around her and pulled her into the void before she could even shout. It was only when her vision cleared that she knew she was in trouble. She was tied to a hard rubber chair with three large men sneering down at her from behind a man with white hair.
He was immaculately dressed in a black tuxedo tailor-made for his impressive build, one that had been forged in combat as his suit did nothing to hide the lean and powerful muscles underneath it. His hair shadowed his vibrantly glowing red eyes, giving them an almost mesmerising effect. The man possessed a strong jaw, with the kind of near perfect facial features you'd see in a tv star.
Even in her groggy state, what Jeri did not, could not, miss was the sheer... menace the man radiated. And as she came to even more, she noticed the gleam in his hypnotic red eyes. It was a lust for her blood, no, her death, and in the slowest, most painful and humiliating way possible. A shudder racked her body; this was not a normal villain she was dealing with.
The man leaned down with a sinister smile that made her skin crawl, his red eyes burning holes into her soul, like he was staring straight through her.
"So good of you to join us, Titania. I hope you like your accommodations; it was difficult to find the right furnishings to counter that little quirk of yours. Oh, where are my manners? You may know me as the King of the Underworld, All for One. I'm sure that idiot husband of yours has told you all about me?"
Titania stared at her captor, trying to hide the winces as she tried to ping. She blinked as she pinged again, not paying attention to the man before her as his grotesque smile widened wickedly as terror spread through her whole body. She kept sending pulses, gritting her teeth as she fought through the pain, biting her cheek in the process to keep from screaming.
Her pulses brought back black space. Nothing but black space. They were hanging suspended in the air. High in the air, if her pings were telling her correctly. It was taking ten seconds for each ping to return to her, so they must be somewhere near 1800 meters up if her pings moved as fast as they usually did. Four times the height needed to reach terminal velocity and seeing how her wings were useless for sustained flight...
She focused back on the grinning villain, she needed to figure out how to get ou
"I'm sure you've realized by now that I plan to kill you, right? I just wanted you to realize just how truly far I went to secure your accommodations, my dear. I will admit, your fear is quite delicious; I can only imagine how it will feel when I remove that nifty little quirk of yours. What was it called again? Ah, yes, Ping. By sending out vibrational waves at the speed of sound, you can pinpoint
anything around you. If I'm led to believe correctly, your max is around three kilometers if pushed? Quite the sensory gift." He moved to place his hand on her forehead, making her skin cringe at the vile touch.
Before All for One made full contact with her head, Jeri spat out the glob of blood she had let build inside her mouth from biting her cheek and hit the monster directly in the face, splattering her blood over his eyes. The malicious man hissed as the crimson fluid dripped down his nose, his red eyes glowing with fury as he slowly wiped it from his face.
Her world exploded in white as he backhanded her hard enough to shatter the mask that teams of engineers had worked so hard to make unbreaking and sent her and the chair she was in careening to the floor, slapping her temple against the hard metal wall. She tried to blink the stars out of her vision as she fought to get free from the chair and get up to fight back. The chair didn't budge, causing her to look down, only just noticing that there were no ropes holding her down.
Her flesh was fused to the plastic material. Her flesh was bonded to the hard plastic chair.
Her stomach tried to cause an uprising as she watched her skin stretch when she pulled at the binding. She tried to send a high frequency ping through the bond, but the material resisted the pummelling of the high speed vibrations that normally would shatter hard packed stone! She yowled in frustration as she tried to brute force it, trying to break the chair like a cheap lawn chair, but nothing gave. She tried to move back as her helmet was removed completely. Her dark fae-like eyes glared daggers at the henchman as he picked her back up before his boss.
"Now, that was quite uncivilized, Mrs. Hiraoka. Surely the wife of the illustrious sixth wielder of One for All can do better than that," the imposing man finished wiping his hand.
"Go fuurk!"
"Yes yes, crass and crude words. So unimaginative. I can't tell you how many times I've heard them. Over and over again, like they think it'll offend me. Tell me, why risk offending me when your very life rests in the palm of my hand?" the villain asked as he removed his fist from Jeri's stomach, leaving her coughing and struggling to breathe. His arrogant voice grated on her ears as he placed his hand on her head again. This time, she really did scream, loosing a shrill, throat- tearing shriek of pain as light bathed the room in white.
Chapter End Notes Authors note:
It's been a while since I've been able to write again, I've tried multiple times since Mom passed away to put pen to paper, but gotdangit, I just couldn't get the words out right. I kept seeing mom in the casket and her final moments. Watching someone go through the end of stage four cancer sucks.
I ended up going through a heavy depression and doubts as to whether I'll ever be the man mom raised me to be before a friend helped me and got my feet back under me. He got me thinking about story ideas and even introduced me to a friend of his that I now play D with on his Twitch channel (yes I am that big of a nerd. ps, I'm not very good). This got my gears clicking and turning and I had to write. I tried starting new stories, but those flopped, but the drive remained until out of boredom, I reread my original versions of this story. It was as if my mind exploded with ideas and so, I rewrote this chapter.
That's enough of my drama though.
To those of you who wished me well and offered their condolences in your reviews, deep down from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Those who stuck with me, whether it was here or on Discord, you have my humblest gratitude. I'm sorry this took so long to get out to you and I hope you don't hold it against me for my hiatus.
Moving on:
Delinquency is probably going to be retired. Those of you who enjoyed it, I'm seriously sorry. I hate reading abandoned stories and hate abandoning one more so, but without mom to bounce ideas with anymore, I just can't get into Able's head anymore. I wrote it, I learned from it, but it hurts too much to continue it right now. If you're interested in adopting it, let me know, I'll help if I can.
What is a Hero will probably continue once I get back into it, but as it stands, Succession Crisis will be my main focus.
Knowledge is Power... ...
...
Yeah I got nothing. Might rewrite it eventually. Dunno what I was drinking when I started that.
K:hoh is going to be rewritten so that it mashes better together with the universe I was trying to build up to. I still want to make a Naruto/Harley Quinn fic happen, it's just gonna be a while.
Succession Crisis: I already have 1k on the next chapter, expect it soon!
Chapter Summary
Roll Back the Rock
"The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophes."
--Albert Einstein
Chapter Notes
Special thanks to Reaf Darksbane over in Epsi's Hoard, where I hang out. Look for the glow of my neon halo!
If you want a more direct way to find me, come on over to my server, Halo's Extreme Disconnect
we have Cinnabons
See the end of the chapter for more notes
The weeks were thick with tension as the two heirs worriedly watched Rokuoh as he grew more distraught. Before they knew it, the day of the Orientation Ceremony was upon them and with it a new change of pace. While he wouldn't exactly say what was bothering him, Nana, Izuku, and their two friends, Sorahiko and Chiyo, could easily see he was concerned and unfocused. They could hear him arguing angrily on the phone at night and rushing out the door in the morning before they left. It wasn't hard to put it together that Jeri hadn't returned.
The older woman had become something of a big sister/aunt figure to Izuku during the time he had stayed in her house. With Takuya already in his school dorms and them about to start Yuuei, the concern the two inheritors of One for All felt for the aged lion was palpable. They would see him appear on the news, with anchors left stunned at his more aggressive approach as he tore through the city. Each time he showed up, the pained and frantic nature of his eyes broke Nana's heart, evidenced by the death grip she kept on Izuku and Sorahiko's hands. Chiyo would sob into Sora's shoulder each and every time as he held her hand in his free palm.
The large lion was manic when they saw him, tearing through leads and calling in old favors. It had shocked Chiyo to the core when she saw her father show up on the news in his uniform to help the big lion and over the course of three weeks, no evidence came to light. Jeri Hiraoka, wife of the King Lion Hero: Braveheart, had vanished.
The last people to see her had been Mercury, Draft, and Lughead of The Emergency Crew agency, with testimony she had been there one moment and then gone without a trace the next. That had been weeks ago, and though the police had effectively called off the search as the trail had gone cold, Rokuoh kept searching. He dismantled underground gangs and crime syndicates trying to find just one iota of information on his wife and coming home looking manic and harried, like he hadn't slept a week since Jeri went missing.
Nana's mother had been more than happy to house Izuku until the term began, not wanting the poor boy to see his clan leader in such a state. By the time the orientation ceremony rolled around, Rokuoh had had to be sedated just so that he would sleep.
All through the introduction of the staff and speech of the principal, neither Nana nor Izuku could focus, their worry paramount in their young minds. With the notable exceptions of the nurse, who introduced herself as Retsu Yachiru, none of the names stood out for them. When the closing speech from the principal ended and they were released back to their homeroom teacher, the two wielders of One for All followed their peers. Upon entering the room, they were met with the sight of the woman they had met this morning, Aelita Morales, their homeroom teacher.
Mrs. Morales was a bubbly woman, a fact her appearance did nothing to present. With the deep scarring to her right side of the face and eyepatch, combined with her slim, lithe figure and the way she presented herself, one could easily think she was a trained and lethal assassin. The way her scar lifted her lips made it seem almost as if she wore a gruesome smile all the time. Despite her disfigurement, she beamed with such absolute warmth and happiness that it felt like standing next to a sun of pure merriment standing in front of her desk in a simple white office blouse, covered by a grey and black pinstripe vest and matching slacks that tightly hugged her hips.
As the class filtered in, the scarred woman gave a bright smile that radiated happiness and clapped her hands together excitedly, as though she was seeing them for the first time. When all of the students made it to their marked seats, the teacher picked up a tablet from her desk and began reading off their names. A few stood out to Izuku, such as Utakane Ishiyama, an extremely large man who, though he was covered in white fur, bore a remarkable resemblance to Cementoss. Not that he looked like an animated concrete block; no, the way he wore his hair and the structure of his eyes were what gave him the resemblance. He was followed by Jiro Saito, the tall young man who had spoken up during the entrance exam who would later become known as The Steadfast Hero: Crimson Riot.
Then there was Kensei Shimura. The green-haired boy couldn't place it, but the name struck him as familiar, like it was just resting on the tip of his tongue. The teen was tall but slender, with a toned runner's body and dark blue hair that curtained around his face. The way he presented himself and the way his eyes shimmered with confidence in his strength was similar to how Katsuki looked, only with far less anger and without the inferiority complex. He noticed Izuku watching him and gave the boy a kind smile.
He snapped his attention back to Mrs. Morales, who was talking about how their quirks didn't make them who they were and that, despite how the education administration of Japan might limit quirk usage outside, they were now authorized to use their quirks, within moderation, and that so long as they abided by the rules and keep up with their studies, they should go far.
After she released them for lunch, Izuku listened happily to Nana as she vibrated in place talking about all the heroes she was getting to meet.
'Was I like that when I first came to Yuuei?' he wondered in his head, only to receive eight very loud voices screaming in unity one word: ~YES!~
It spoke volumes about Rokuoh's training that he didn't jump out of his skin.
His attention was brought back to reality when someone poked him in the shoulder. Turning, he found his eyes focusing on three teens, one with bright bubblegum pink hair and dragonfly wings, one with eight completely crimson eyes, two large in the normal spot and six following her eyebrows, and finally Kensei. The bubblegum faerie girl gave a beaming smile as she spoke.
"Hiya, Green Bean! Mind if we sit with you?" she asked with a sparkling smile. Without even waiting for a response, she sat down beside Izuku and began to dig into her food. Izuku looked at Nana, who shrugged. Kensei and the spider girl looked at each other before sitting down as well, with Kensei to the opposite of the fairy girl.
"Sorry, I was just so hungry!" the fairy girl said before covering her mouth as she let out a small burp. "My quirk needs a lot of carbs to work right, so I have a really, really fast metabolism. So anyways, I'm Hitomi! My quirk is called Pixie. To use it though, I have to shrink down, but once I do, I can use the excess energy of my body in short bolts. I call them stings. What're your names? Ooo what can you do? From your builds, I'd say you're heavy lifters, especially Green Bean here. How did you do on the entrance exam? Jeez, look at those muscles! Can you grate cheese on your abs? I once heard about someone who could do that. Can you show me you—"
"And I think that's enough of that," Kensei said as he shoved a roll into Hitomi's mouth. "I apologize for my friend here; she speaks before thinking and, well, you saw for yourself. This," he gestured to the spider girl, who offered a serene smile, "is Yuria. She can't talk due to something her father did when she opened her eyes the first time, so unless you know Japanese Sign Language, Hitomi or I will probably translate for her. My name is Kensei; nice to meet you."
"I'm Nana Masume, and this bundle of anxiety is the nephew of my dojo master, Izuku Nozomi."
Nana said simply, her eyes sizing up Kensei. "Nice to meet you too."
"So what do you think we're going to be doing next?" Kensei said as he took a bite from his yakisoba dish.
"P-p-probably quirk assessment," Izuku quietly mumbled, only to realize everyone was looking at him. "W-w-what?"
Kensei laughed softly. "Jeez dude, you stutter worse than Eclipse. Gotta man up, yeah?" "S-sorry," Izuku deflated slightly.
"C'mon Superman, what did Leomeow-sensei always tell you when you stuttered?" Nana asked as she nudged the boy wonder in the ribs, making him jump. He looked at her for a moment, staring into her lavender eyes for a moment. Before the heat on his cheeks became a full blush, he looked away from her warm, smiling, amethyst eyes and coughed into his fist.
~Be proud like a lion is what I'd say~ came the rough growl in Izuku's mind, making him smile behind his fist.
'Thanks, master,' he thought back, getting a huff back before the voice went silent.
The rest of the day went by quickly for the two inheritors. Mrs. Morales did indeed have them run the gauntlet to test the understanding they had of their quirk (Izuku and Kensei tied for second place while Nana took first, mostly because Izuku kept overshooting everything and breaking equipment by accident because he kept expecting the better equipment from the time he was from and put too much power into everything) before she released them for the day. For Izuku, he was remembering Aizawa's words from when he did it the first time. For Nana, it was uplifting and she was hanging on every word the teacher said.
It irritated her to no end when Izuku's shirt got ripped when he broke the grip-testing machine and she had to listen to all the girls squeal about his muscular body in the locker room. Sure, he was fit, but damn it. That wasn't all the green bean was. He had a pure innocent smile that just screamed, "it's going to be okay," and he was humble about himself, almost to self-depreciation.
Sure, he needed confidence, but she had seen how his emerald eyes burned with ferocious determination when they sparred. Being a hero wasn't just a way to get rich for him, it wasn't some weekend gig. No, down to his very core, Izuku Nozomi breathed, bled, and needed to be a hero. She blushed, remembering how he had talked about her successor and how the man she'd choose became like a second father to the boy, how this Toshinori was his favorite hero ever. How those determined, verdant eyes would soften when they peered into hers, almost like they were peering through her. How he'd blush hotly at her every innuendo, like a tomato.
And these hussies were only focused on his abs? She rushed out of the changing room before she snapped one of the prissy little barbie dolls—right into the wall of muscles that was waiting for her outside. Warm arms wrapped around her to steady her as she stared up into those gorgeous forest- green eyes she was just thinking about.
"Y-you okay, Nana?" Izuku asked as she pushed off him and cleared her thoughts. She didn't have a crush on Future Boy, she didn't have a crush on Future Boy, she did not have a crush on Future Boy! (She had a crush on Future Boy.)
"I... erm... yeah, I'm fine. Let's get to the apartment Leomeow-sensei got us, yeah?" she said, not looking back and hoping Izuku didn't see her red face. Jesus Christ, he was firm as hell! What was Roku feeding him?
Before Jeri's disappearance, she and Rokuoh had bought an apartment building in Musutafu for them to live in that was near enough to the campus to walk without much of a hassle. They let the tenants that already lived there stay while lowering their already expensive rent to a far more affordable price. Nana's mother happily came by every other day to check on them (read as "doting on Izuku"), only leaving when the teens hit the sack.
The days began to blend together for the two students. Every morning just before dawn, Nana would wake up to hear the apartment door close and open again two hours later as Izuku would return from whatever he was doing covered in grime, filth, and sweat, reeking to high heavens. They'd get prepared to go to school, sit through their basic classes, and do heroics class in the afternoon. Rinse and repeat. They went over how to handle interviews in the hero classes, from how to negotiate a hostage situation to how to subdue a bomb threat. Each and every bloody time, Izuku lost his shirt from some freak occurrence, ranging from him flexing too hard to one of the machines malfunctioning and blasting it off him. Regardless of the how, Nana had to deal with squeals from the barbie squad each and every single time . For crying out loud, she could just hear the thirst in their voices to the point where she debated carrying a water bottle.
Every now and then, Sorahiko and Chiyo would join them at lunch with Kensei, Hitomi, and Yuria, chiming in to debate heroes and who's quirk was best. Izuku flexed that big brain of his as he dissected the heroes' quirks and laid it out for them to see in factual terms who he thought could beat who, usually ending the discussion with a lengthy debate.
Before they realized it, they had gotten through their first month, and Mrs. Morales was announcing they needed to vote for a class president. That had been a close vote; though most everyone was voting for themselves, many voted for Kensei because of his laid-back confidence or Izuku for his hard-working performance (though it probably also had to do with dehydrated girls wanting his abs). Nana had voted for her friend, but was surprised when he declined the spot, opting to give Kensei the limelight. Kensei, in a show of good sportsmanship, announced the green bean as his VP.
It felt like the sports festival was looming above them at that point. All the teachers hashed on and on about how agencies from all over Japan would be watching them as though they were some kind of gladiatorial sport. That didn't help how infuriated she was getting about Izuku's complete and total oblivious nature!
Five times! Five times, he had been approached by girls (and some boys) asking if Izuku was single. Five times she had to listen to bitch barbies talk about his bloody fucking ABS! Five times she had to beat the fuck out of Green Beans's dumbass' groupies because they felt they had to rub his muscular form in her face! Every single fucking day, someone felt the need to rub it in her face.
She was on her way out the door to head back to their shared apartment when she heard loud laughter to the side of the garden. Normally she wouldn't have given a damn, but when she heard Izuku stutter, she was curious enough to investigate.
"All right all right, let the boy speak. Which girl in our class would you date if given the chance, neh greeny?" Kensei's voice asked as Nana edged closer.
"I bet it's Man-Hands Masumi. Sheesh dude, why do you let her hang around you? She's flat as a board and got those gross big hands," came the arrogant voice of Kota Feng, the so called "Big Shot" of 1-B
"Nana isn't gross!" Izuku fervently exclaimed, shocking Nana with just how much heat he packed in his voice. "She's kind, caring, and a-actually gives a damn. The way her eyes shine, if the sun hits them just right, is like looking into the purest amethyst!"
" Dayum, he got it bad!" Utakane Ishiyama groaned out in his gravelly voice.
"I guess she isn't all bad. She has a fire ass and them thighs though! I want to be the watermelon between her—"
The sound of flesh hitting flesh interrupted Kota, and he yelled out in pain. The sound of struggling feet and grunts of exertion made her step out of her hiding spot to see Kensei, Ishiyama, Himura Masanori, and Jiro Saito straining to hold an enraged Izuku back. Green lightning was dancing on his skin as Izuku simply shrugged Ishiyama's large frame off of him. Feng scrambled up and was about to say something with venom when a voice halted everyone.
"And just what is going on here?" Mrs. Morales, the normally sweet and bubbly woman had never looked so terrifying in the setting sun's light. The raised skin of her facial scar cast shadows across her face as though she were a yokai come to eat their intestines. She stepped out from behind the ferns with her arms crossed, but Nana could see how tensed up she was, like she was ready for whatever the boys could throw at her.
"Miss Masumi, kindly escort Mr. Nozomi home before he blows an artery while I have words with the class president and Mr. Feng."
Kensei jolted and looked at her in surprise, not realizing she had been listening. She, however, wasn't paying attention to him; instead, she was glaring at Feng, who stared at her with a swelling cheek. Izuku must have held back even in his anger since the lad still had his head.
She walked up and poked Izuku in the cheek, getting his attention and calming him down enough to stop straining against the three teens holding him and let her grab his hand, marveling at how small her palm felt in his. It felt... right.
It had been a few days since she had eavesdropped on the boys and she still hadn't had the courage to talk to Izuku about what she heard him say. A few girls had given her some crude remarks, but she brushed it off. If they wanted to be shallow, then that was their problem. She focused on the stage in front of her as Visor shouted into a microphone above her.
"Welcome, welcome, one and all, young and old! Today is the show all of you have been waiting for, the annual Yuuei Sports Festival! We have the current big listers in the audience for these hopeful first years to try and impress enough for an internship, granting them one- on-one training for one week. Now a word from our ref, the teacher who's nobody's fool while she takes villains to school, the Aqua Tasha from America, Liquididot!
From behind the stage stepped the proctor from the entrance exam, suited up in a body-tight, navy blue one piece. The turquoise of her heavy gauntlets, boots, and chestplate popped off the darker color like beacons. Covering her face was a white mask that ended just before her hairline, letting
her long, hip-length blonde hair wave in the wind. Raising off the mask, in a contrast to the blue and white, were mechanized lenses that simulated the expressions of her eyes. The mask left the area around her mouth and nostrils exposed, revealing the kind smile she wore on ruby red lips.
As she stepped out into the light of the sun, she waved to the audience, her smile widening to show off pearly whites as she brought the microphone to her lips.
"Now, I know what you're thinking. You think I'm going to go on and on about the last nineteen years and how Yuuei Academy is building a tradition that will last into the future, but let's be honest here, ain't no one come here to see that. If you want that information, we got brochures for that. Nope, y'all came here for one thing and one thing only: to see if the future is in good hands. So, let's find out shall we? Izuku Nozomi, could you come to the stage?"
Nana could swear she heard a high-pitched squeak beside as her training partner/punching bag stepped to the stage, looking immensely uncomfortable in front of the mass gathered to see them. She grinned as he unconsciously rubbed his arm as he gave a shy wave to the crowd.
"Now, what y'all may or may not know is every year, the first year student that makes the highest grade on the entrance exam is asked to open us up for the festivities before us. Out of two hundred and fifty applicants to our school, little green here was the only one to almost ace the entire test, earning exactly one hundred and ninety points. Now, let's all give him a big round of applause, yeah?"
If Izuku could shrink any more into his shirt, Nana might have suspected he had a turtle mutation. The stadium burst into half-hearted applause, mingled with a few cat calls. Liquididot nudged Izuku to the podium, even though the poor boy looked like he was having a major heart attack. He stood there with watery eyes as his hands fidgeted.
He tried to speak a few times, stuttering like a jackhammer until his eyes landed on Nana's. For a brief moment, just a sliver of a second, it felt like it was only them, green meeting amethyst, and the world stood still. She watched as Izuku closed his eyes and took a deep breath and transformed into the shadow of the man he was becoming. The hero not yet free of the shell was breaking through with the fires of determination flaming in his eyes.
"I-I won't lie, I'm a bit nervous, sorry. Wasn't expecting to give a speech, so I'm sorry for wasting time better spent on us earning your respect. Each of us before you today is going to lay it all on the line to earn such a lofty goal, and to my fellow students, I ask you to remember one thing: you are not just an aspiring hero following in the footsteps of legends, no. You are on your own path toward greatness. With one step, we have started our journey to become the shoulders that those who come after us can stand high upon. There are stories about every hero, how they became great. Most have one thing in common: their bodies moved before they had a chance to think,
almost on their own. The simple act of wanting to do something good in this world, one that is a scary concept of its own, made each and everyone here more than what they were yesterday.
"So I ask of you, hold nothing back, and If you feel yourself hitting up against your limit, remember for what cause you clench your fists... remember why you started down this path, and let that memory carry you beyond your limit. Let that feeling allow you to go beyond anything you could do yesterday. After all, we all know the words, the motto of this very school!" Izuku raised his fist to the sky, his eyes staying on Nana's as he raised a finger. She couldn't stop herself from joining the green-haired freshman as he and everyone in the arena shouted.
"Go Beyond! PLUS ULTRA!"
Liquididot was smiling as she took the mic back from Izuku as he began to realize what he had just done and scampered off the stage to his class. Nana could feel him vibrating as he took his spot beside her and slipped her hand into his to try to calm him down. She didn't say anything, afraid that if she started, she'd never stop. Maybe tonight she could scrounge up the courage to talk to him. To tell him that she was growing to like him as more than a friend. It scared her that he might not like her the same way, but that was future Nana's problem. Right now, she just wanted him to know that she was there for him. The look of gratitude he gave her made her stomach flutter.
Liquididot called their attention back by clearing her throat. "Wow, and here I thought my class here had a powerful speech." The audience rumbled with soft chuckles as Izuku ducked his head in embarrassment. "Now then, we decided to do things a wee bit different.
"This year, we will be starting with the obstacle race! All participants will begin from the gate here and race through a four-mile track laced with obstacles. First person back here will receive a special gift. Now, everyone, nice and civil-like, line up at the starting position!"
The classes scattered and began to mill over to the gate, eager to prove their worth with all they had. The gate was simple, a drop wall that would fall into the sleeve built into the ground as soon as the timer to its side hit zero. Once everyone was in place, the timer lit up with a large five and began to slowly tick down to one, everyone holding their breath. Izuku and Nana both began to emit feelers of electricity, Izuku's a bright green and white and Nana's a vibrant purple. With a quick glance at each other, they dropped the hands they were holding and tensed up. When the clock struck zero and the wall fell, they were off like lightning.
The race was on.
Rokuoh stared at the sight in front of him, bile rising from his stomach. He recognized the body speared to the concrete with a pylon of metal that went through one shoulder into the sedimentary surface. He knew her broken helmet and the coat she adored since he had gotten it for her. The blood was still dripping from the haft to the pole. Her wings were stretched out to a grotesque proportion, like her tormentor took great pleasure in dislocating her once beautiful wings. The still- attached arm and legs were pulled into a horrific facsimile of a crucifixion. The other arm was a bleeding mess, with loose flesh hanging from the socket.
Naoru Shuzenjii was quick to check her over and began shouting to the EMTs as she applied her quirk to the hanging nightmare. Hope kindled inside the large heart beating inside his chest as he ran to the body and began to rip the spikes out. Naoru wouldn't use her quirk if Jeri were dead, so the sooner that he could get her to the closest emergency room, the more likely she was to make it through!
Takuya stared defiantly at the villain as he stood in the center of his classroom. The man was dressed exquisitely as he smiled down at the young boy he was pressing painfully into the tiles of the floor. One of the underlings had tried to touch Zoe, and his inner lion roared in his heart. Because of his action, Zoe had been able to escape out the window at the cost of Takuya being tackled to the floor. The dapper villain had treated the whole thing as though it was a mere comedy.
"I can certainly say you're more courageous than your father, little kitty. I've sent calling card after calling card after him, but the sniveling cat never responds. Maybe the latest one I sent him will remedy that. If not, I've got a special one that will come right after. Tell me little cat, what do you think about explosions? I remember that your mother had a specialty for rescue missions centered around schools, so how fitting that her son's school be one of those same missions?"
Takuya struggled against the large man holding him down as more men entered the room carrying barrels covered with wires and cylinders. He growled as he felt his muscles scream in exertion.
"I swear, Akuma, sometimes I ponder your usefulness. Break his legs," the man said as he fixed his tie in a mirror sitting in the teacher's lap as she screamed into the gag in her mouth. "Oh, and set the timers to three minutes, yes?"
"Yes sir," the man on Takuya's back grunted before he slammed his fist down on the boy's knees, causing the young lion to yowl in pain. The large man grinned down at his captive before he got off the boy's back to set the timer.
"Now, I bid you adieu, children. I want you to know this is nothing personal; just good business," the suave man said in his elegant enunciation, adjusting his cuffs as he walked out.
Chapter End Notes
Sorry this chapter took so long to post. its been finished for some time, but both between getting sick with a summer flu and everything, I haven't felt up to proofing it or sending it to Reaf to edit. hope you enjoy, chapter 6 should be the end of the sports festival and onto the internships. there really isn't much to throw into the school years so kinda trying to skip the nonessential fluff while pointing to key factors. till next time, Ciao!
Chapter Summary
Allons-y!
"I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
Chapter Notes
Special thanks to Reaf Darksbane over in Epsi's Hoard, where I hang out. Look for the glow of my neon halo!
If you want a more direct way to find me, come on over to my server, Halo's Extreme Disconnect
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Normally, Mrs. Fortune presented a more flirty persona. Seeing her opponents blush and act awkward made them distracted when her shadows snuck into their shadows and restrained them was sometimes more delightful than distasteful, and it often led to the criminals opening up to her. It was her gimmick, after all, basing her appearance and hero personality after the ancient tv show actress Cassandra Peterson and her on-screen persona, Elvira. A figure she grew to love after she found videos in the library archives near her childhood home. Her extremely pale skin was covered, albeit barely, by a low-cut black dress with long sleeves that hung past her wrist and ended in ragged tears that fluttered in the wind. The hem of the dress's skirt pooled at her feet, though her toned legs were on easy display through the slits on either side, bracketed by the knee- high boots she wore to complete the look. Her milky-white hand lifted up to flick her long black hair back over her shoulder, revealing her pale blue eyes rimmed with penciled mascara.
She sighed into the weak coffee one of the deputies had handed her as her shadows dug through the wreckage of the collapsed building before her. This was the fifth one this week! That wasn't counting the other twenty bombings that had been sporadically set off throughout the month. Each scene was left with latin written in blood on one of the few walls that remained standing: Un pour tous, tous pour un . One for All and All for One. A call back to Alexandre Dumas' Les Trois Mousquetaires.
What could she say? She liked the classics and The Three Musketeers was one of her favorites. Using it like this, however, felt dirty.
She watched as her shadows emerged from the rubble and deposited forms onto the pavement where EMT personnel immediately began to triage the new casualties. She hated doing rescue jobs. Give her a villain to pummel any day. Seeing the small, unmoving forms of children felt so wrong; they should be filled with so much energy that you wish they would sit down. Seeing the empty lifeless eyes of the survivors made it even worse; how the ones still living were still in the moment of adrenaline that had probably saved their lives.
She turned when she heard some of the workers on break shout and cheer as they listened to something in the relief tent and rolled her eyes. Probably some silly sports game. She couldn't blame them for trying to divert their minds; they had been at this operation all night and were still pulling people from the rubble. No, she couldn't blame them, but she did smirk when one of the responders began to chew out the jubilant crew members.
"—Believe it or not! Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in forever we have a three-way tie in the first event! All three hailing from class 1-B: first on the list: The oncoming storm of purple electricity, NANA MASUMI! Next up, rolling with a shout of 'SMASH!', living lightning of verdant green, IZUKU NOZOMI! And finally, the laid back class president with the speed of Mercury, KENSEI SHIMURA! Jeez, Morales, what do you feed these kids?"
Fortune blinked and turned back to the break tent with furrowed brows. Today was the sports festival? She sighed and rubbed her tired eyes. One of her sidekicks had better record the thing; she had been looking forward to it, after all, and after yet another school bombing, she could use the distraction.
Liquididot stared in surprise at the three kids that had tied for first place, all three breathing with slight exertion. The green one, the one she'd had give the speech, and the purple-eyed girl still had sparks of energy bouncing across their gym uniforms, while the third one, the class president, was hunched over with his hands on his knees, his skin glowing with a silver sheen. She pressed her finger to her ear before she stepped closer to the group.
"Well kiddies, you beat the herd—" she cocked her hip out while propping her hand on the top of her utility belt "—so badly the judges are trying to stop their heads from spinning. Problem is, we can only have one first place. So, the judges are going through the footage to compare your performance and see who did the best on the obstacles."
Nozomi and Masumi barely looked winded now, something that piqued her curiosity as they
looked at each other. Shimura looked like he was about to pass out as he tried to stand up, "Ummm Proctor, I'm ok—" he stopped to take a breath "—with third place. I got a tad too competitive and used everything I had in the tank."
"High metabolism?" Liquididot asked, looking him over again, noting how his skin was stretched tight over his muscles in an unhealthy manner. He must have consumed all his body fat using his quirk to keep up with the other two. He gave a nod, prompting the proctor to wave over a medic to escort him to the medical room. After speaking quickly into her headset and relaying the turn of events, she looked back at the other two and deadpanned. They were playing high speed jankenpon. They were settling the tie with a kid's game.
Once the rest of the pack filed back into the arena, Vizor's voice echoed around the arena once more. "Ladies and gentlemen, in a turn of events, the first place has been decided through unprecedented circumstances. Firstly, Kensei Shimura has been withdrawn due to medical necessity. Secondly, in a combination of Jankenpon and judge ruling, Nana Masumi has been declared the victor of the obstacle race!"
The crowd roared its approval as Nana tried to hide behind Izuku's larger frame, blushing up a storm. It was clear she wasn't used to this much attention by her rare bout of shyness. Meanwhile, Izuku looked like the proper caricature of a ghost; pale, clammy, wide eyed.
"Now, sadly, only the top forty positions can move on. Due to Shimura's withdrawal, number forty-one will be continuing to the next stage, but everyone else will have to vacate the field. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay there.
"Now, while we are setting the field and clearing the debris, let's give our commission booth some work as we take a short intermission," came the warbled static audio out of an aged box tv.
The light it projected silhouetted a shadow sat hunched on a couch before it. Sat around him were half-eaten pizzas in their boxes, several knives with dark liquid dripping onto the table, ash trays filled with cigarette butts, and parts to a disassembled shotgun.
Shadows blocked all but the figure's wide, sinister smile, the light of the tv shading the gnarled and broken teeth as a warty tongue ran over them. The figure stared at the bright screen as it showed a green-haired kid, Icarus or something, as he talked to a purple-eyed girl. He must have said something funny, because she had just laughed and pushed his shoulder. A growl came from the figure on the couch as it leaned forward, long unwashed hair cascading like a curtain around its face.
His skin was perfect! Flawless! It was exactly the right tone he was looking for for the project he was working on! Galatea would be beautiful with his skin on her! And the purple eyes! That girl wasn't using those gems to their fullest potential. The figure stood up, laughing, as the light
revealed a figure quite obviously male as he danced over to a mannequin covered in grotesque viscera. A high pitched sob came from the darkness before the man kicked at it. The man turned and looked back at the tv. Oh yes, Pygmalion would complete his Galatea. He picked up the knife beside the mannequin before turning back to the darkness just as the tv displayed a bright commercial, revealing a woman in scrubs bound tightly on the floor watching him with wide, tear- filled eyes.
First thing's first. Galatea needed a skeleton and, well, meat was meat.
In the Hosu district, a large man in a trench coat studied the screen before him, watching the green- haired boy with interest as the boy fell into what looked like some sort of thinking pose with the first placer, some kid that farted air from his feet, and an athletic looking girl with bubblegum pink hair and pixie wings standing around him. The large man leaned forward when the boy stood up with what looked like an eureka moment before he began relaying his thoughts to the others. The camera switched angles to some kid with white hair and the large man began filling out a form. This could be fruitful if what he saw was true; a highly deductive mind.
If trained, the lad could be one of the best heroes with a mind like that. He'd have to test it first; where did the analytic nature of that noggin focus? Judging from the way the first placer kept looking at the boy, the man could only assume that the next power couple was being set in stone here. Whether the boy knew it or not was beside the point.
Still, maybe a push could help the two finalize? Nah, his wife would kick his ass if he meddled. Best let it develop naturally.
Masumi, Masumi... where had he heard that before? Wasn't that the name of the girl that old lion was training? He hadn't spoken to his teacher since the old lion finally tied down his faerie girl and had a son. The man looked at a picture of a young man in a red trench coat and black one-piece suit with straps criss-crossing all over his chest standing back to back with a large lion headed man, both grinning at the camera.
He turned back to the screen in front of him and grinned as the group of four worked in unison to hold their position on one of the four towers. It wasn't the big point one, which was smart; they wouldn't be considered the primary target, allowing them to hold their position with little competition.
"Shion!" the man shouted, looking toward the door. After a few moments, a woman with bright blue hair poked her head in.
"You called, Orion?" she asked, her wide red eyes sparkling. "Yeah, I need you to send these intern offers to Yuuei."
Liquididot clapped her hands loudly as the buzzer rang out, signifying the end of the second event, allowing Izuku to finally relax and take a breath. After taking the water Sorahiko offered, he sat down on the soft soil, letting his body relax for a moment. Despite Rokuoh working his body to the foundations and rebuilding his muscles from the ground up, the constant draw on One for All was still too taxing if he held it at too high a level over what his body could comfortably handle. At his current level, he could hold forty, maybe fifty percent in his body without snapping a tendon or breaking something.
Izuku had to wonder, if he never met Rokuoh, never learned how to properly wield the powerful quirk, where would he be at this moment in the school year? Would he have still been breaking bones? Would he have figured out how to do the air flicks? Would he have flourished so well? He looked at his missing pinky, the knuckle gnarled and scarred over with hard, calloused skin from where compressed gravity had ripped it from his hand. It remained a reminder of just how far he had come, how far he still had to go before he could become the beacon his predecessors believed he could be.
The journey was going to be hard. With Rokuoh dealing with a comatose Jeri and the loss of Takuya, the large lion was unavailable to train Izuku and Nana, something both inheritors completely understood. When the two had heard the news about the little lion, they had been devastated and spent the night grieving.
Izuku flexed his hand, wishing he could do more. It wasn't fair that a villain could just walk into a school and end so many bright minds that could have rocked the world with their influence. Just wipe them away like eraser rubbings. He released the building pressure of Full Cowl and took a steadying breath. As he did, he looked up to see Nana laughing at something Sorahiko had said, though from the look of his face, the teen hadn't meant it as a joke. He looked at the remaining classmates from 1-B, ignoring the venomous glare Feng was sending his way.
There were sixteen contestants left: the ones whose teams had been able to hold onto their platforms when the buzzer went off. It had been hectic, with everyone trying to pull the main tower holders off and take their place until about half way into the timer, then they scrambled to just get a tower. With a combination of Izuku doing finger flicks at fifteen percent to push people away, Nana floating and holding everyone, and Sora and Hitomi steering with air pushes and fluttering wings, they were able to defend the secondary hill, netting them the lead as they held one of the
hills the longest.
His attention was pulled to the forefront as Liquididot clapped her hands again. His fingers twitched; he just wanted to draw her uniform and try to analyze her quirk. From what he remembered from the entrance exam, she could change the state of the matter in her body from solid to liquid. Perfect for espionage as she could just slip under a door frame or tight cracks.
He shook his head. 'Head in the game, shitty nerd!' echoed in his head. Kacchan was many things: a bully, overconfident to the point of arrogant, but not stupid. His former childhood friend was driven, that much was assured. Rokuoh had helped Izuku to see what his friend had become and it still hurt.
~Hey, if we listen closely to one of Nine's ears, would we hear the sea?~ asked the first holder, breaking his mulings yet again. He really needed to work on that. He turned to watch one of the stadium workers stomp the ground and lift his arms, shaking as though he were lifting something incredibly heavy. From the ground rose a meter tall platform that looked about fifteen meters wide and long.
Liquididot was holding out a box to each of the remaining contestants, drawing lots. When she made it to Izuku, she gave him a warm smile that made him blush slightly. Reaching his hand into the box, he pulled a slip of paper that had a large bold six in comic sans and held it aloft, showing the proctor.
"And the tournament has been drawn up! Ladies and gentlemen, once more, let's hear it for these brave students! Now, the rules of the fights are simple: keep it non-lethal, obviously. Fights will be determined by ring out, submission, and knock out. The proctors will step in if the fights get too brutal. Remember, you're not here to fight to the death, you're here to showcase how you do in a fight, so let's keep it professional. The fights in order will be on the board in three... two... now."
The board flickered to life, showing the tournament bracket in a vibrant green text on a black backdrop. The first fight zoomed to the forefront.
"Sorahiko Torino and Koyomi Fueki, please step onto the raised platform. Everyone else, please step into the locker rooms to prepare for your fights," Liquididot said as Sora began to walk to the stage. Izuku gave him a grin and fist bumped him on his way to the locker room.
He watched the fight intently on the monitor in the room, watching as Sora slowly chipped away at
Fueki. Audio wasn't projected from the screen, but he could see Fueki watching Sora closely, like she was studying him. Eventually he saw her move, dodging to the side as Sora rocketed past her. Izuku sighed; of course Sora would try to trap her. He was an experienced fighter, consistently out maneuvering both Izuku and Nana whenever they sparred. What he had done was let Fueki study him and draw a false conclusion before feinting low and inside her guard. Sora jet kicked Fueki's feet out from under her and used his propulsion to launch her out of the ring, winning his round.
Izuku's attention was yanked from the screen to the door slamming open, bouncing off the wall and slamming into the face of whoever had tried to do a flashy entrance. He heard a feminine grunt as the metal of the door hit solid flesh. He pulled it open further to see Nana nursing her nose. When she saw him watching her, she tried to play it off by leaning on the door frame.
"Sup, Green bean!" she said, as though her nose wasn't cherry red.
"Are... are you ok?" he asked, looking at her nose. She sputtered out an embarrassed laugh and waved it off. Izuku was beginning to get worried; this wasn't like Nana at all.
"Hey, Green Bean, umm... hey do you want to... aw hell, what was I thinking? I can't do this."
"Nana, breathe. What has you so anxious?" Izuku asked as he watched her with concern. He watched her take a breath and visibly relax. She turned quickly, catching him off guard. Her eyes were filled with determination as she stomped forward, backing him up into the wall. She grabbed the neck of his shirt and pulled him down so he was eye level with her.
"This Saturday, we're going to the movies," she growled. "Um... ok?"
~She's asking you out, kid,~ the elder Nana echoed inside his head. 'Oh. Oh!'
Izuku.exe has stopped responding... Rebooting...
Rebooting...
a fatal error has occurred.
~Kid, repeat after me: "I'll be looking forward to it."~
"I-I um... I'll be l-looking forward t-to it," he managed to stutter out
~Oh my, they're so cute when they're young,~ giggled the inner-Nana in a teasingly sultry voice.
After Nana's surprise visit, Izuku barely paid attention to the next fight. Not that it was much of one: Feng's quirk, Status Cloud, allowed him to create a mist around him that inflicted status effects, like short-term paralysis. Homura might be able to see most of the quirk's ability with her Soul Sight, but she needed to breathe. As soon as she did, it was over; Feng punched her in the diaphragm hard enough to make her eyes go wide and her to curl over his fist as he threw her out of the ring before stomping out of the arena and back to his locker room.
After that, Izuku heard his name called on the PA system and headed out to meet his opponent. Once they both made it into the ring, Izuku was struck hard with Deja Vu; standing opposite of him was a near replica of his original homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa. Down to the bloodshot eyes and stubble. Izuku blinked as his opponent scratched his head.
"Troublesome. Can we start now? I need to show what I can do so I can go back to sleep," he said, his face showing exhaustion. Izuku was too dumbstruck to respond as Liquididot called the fight. As soon as she lowered her hand, the doppelganger exploded into motion, shaking Izuku out of his thoughts.
A tingling in the back of his mind told him to duck, forcing him to duck forward into a roll as a sharp punch flew through where his head had been. The ringing in his head grew to a steady pulse, causing him to roll to the left as the air distorted in a wave from Shunsui's fist, shrieking in a high pitched tone that cracked the rock surface of the platform. Izuku's mind whirled as he tried to work out how the quirk worked, but before he could give it much more thought, the tingling on his neck was back as his opponent was in front of him with his leg straight up for an axe kick.
Izuku slapped himself hard on the chin and pulled more on Full Cowl. The bleed off energy crackled as electricity arced off his muscles. Glowing green eyes met wide brown eyes before Shunsui brought down his leg quickly and Izuku moved . To the audience, they only saw Shunsui hike his leg up and bring it down with a sickening crack as his quirk split the platform and kicked up dust. The next moment, there was a vibrant electric light bouncing around the platform like a lightning bolt and Shunsui was hurled out of the ring, with Liquididot immediately rushing to check on the teen. Meanwhile, standing in the spot the teen had been standing was Izuku with static discharges striking the ground and arcing over his hands, standing like he was trying to block a kick. After a few seconds, blood ran from his ears, eyes, and nose and he began to shake, the lightning dissipating as he fell to his knees.
Izuku could feel the vibrations tearing through his body. Good news was, he had discovered what Shunsui's quirk did. Bad news was it was essentially a sonic-based ability and was hurting him. He could feel the burst blood vessels pouring from the spots affected, mostly his eyes, nose, and ears, but until it cleared, the only sense he had functioning was touch and even that was hurting. Why did he think catching the kick was a good idea again? Somehow, Shunsei sent out high-pitched sound waves that added a punishing effect, to speak the obvious.
Sight? Crimson. Sound? High pitched sounds were ringing in his ears. Smell was out, he could still feel blood dripping from his nose. Taste? Blinded by a coppery flavor. Ok, where was Shunsui? Was he going to take advantage of the impairment? He waited a couple of minutes as he knelt on the rock. Nothing happened.
What was going on?
He waited a few more seconds, wishing he knew what was going on as he held himself ready, waiting for an attack. When a soft hand rested on his shoulder, he tried to reach out and grab it, but it was like trying to grab water as his fingers passed through the wrist. The Proctor? Was the fight over? The hand patted his shoulder and another hand wrapped around his own wrist and began to guide him from the arena. He stumbled blindly with the hand that guided him, helping him to somewhere. Something or someone slipped under his other arm and the guiding hand let go of his wrist.
Nana panicked when she saw Izuku kneel down with blood running down his face and rushed out to the entrance. Her hands covered her mouth when she saw him; he looked so confused and lost. His eyes were completely crimson and blood was still dripping from his face as Liquididot guided him into the tunnel. She could hear the murmurs of the crowd outside, curiosity loud amongst them. She stepped aside when she saw the medical bots carrying a stretcher with Shunsei on it past her before she bolted to Izuku's side.
Liquididot looked her over for a moment before she asked, "You're in his class, right? Masumi?" Nana gave her a nod, not looking away from her friend. Now that she was closer, she could see blotchy bruises spreading out under his skin, purpling the normally tanned flesh. "Good. I have to go proctor the next fight; think you can get him to Dr. Yachiru? She should have him right as rain in a couple of minutes since it's just sensory breakdown."
Nana gave another nod as she slipped under Izuku's arm, feeling him tense slightly. She could feel the barely suppressed shivers under his skin, whether from fear or pain, she knew not. He was tense, clammy, and sweaty. She could see the muscles in his jaw clench and unclench as his eyes danced behind the crimson film, like he was trying to see through whatever kept him from seeing the world around him. She felt her eyes moisten before she blinked it away.
She heard a snort behind her before she turned to see Feng leaning against the doorframe to his locker room, his sharp canines on full display with his wide derivative smirk as he chewed on a straw from a juice box. His amber eyes were watching them like a cat watches a mouse, full of amusement. Nana growled and continued towards the nurse's office.
Chapter End Notes
Hope you enjoyed! Remember, I love feedback, good and bad, so long as it's constructive. If I'm ever going to go professional, I need as much practice as possible!
I Got A Pizza Here Under The Name "Torchwood"
Chapter Summary
"Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?" --The Bible, Isaiah, 45:9
Chapter Notes
Special thanks to Reaf Darksbane over in Fireside Tales, where I hang out. Look for the glow of my neon halo!
If you want a more direct way to find me, come on over to my server, Halo's Extreme Disconnect
The sun shone brightly through the window beside the woman as she worked on filling out the paperwork before her. Her long black hair was braided tightly so that it came around her neck and covered the horrific stab scar just under her clavicle from a lucky (or unlucky, depending on the perspective) thug who thought a doctor would make an easy target. The thug learned that day that it was very hard to hold a knife when all the tendons in your hand are cut by a very sharp scalpel. Retsu Yachiru on the other hand? Well, she learned that self-defense apparently violates the Hippocratic Oath, and she was demoted from world-class surgeon to high school nurse. That had been a blow to her ego as, instead of doing a thoracic aortic dissection repair or spinal osteomyelitis surgery, she instead was fixing the boo-boos of children.
Still, sometimes it was rewarding. Full access to the on-campus gyms, the ability to push her body and quirk to its full potential, and possibly the most endearing: teaching young minds interested in the medical field. Take the daughter of her old colleague, Chiyo Shuzenji. Much like her mother Naoru, Chiyo was an open-headed young girl with a bright mind who didn't want to rely on her quirk to heal people. Her sunny disposition was delightful to have in the office as well.
Retsu looked at a picture to the side of a group of teens with a small smile, looking over their dyed white hair and roughed-up clothes. She never forgot the day her clique handed the "little sister" of their gang enough money to attend a prestigious medical school. With all the discrimination she received throughout her life to that point, Retsu had believed she would never become anything in the world. Come to find out, the gang of delinquents that had gathered around her and protected her, were all busting their asses off to earn enough money to help her.
She looked at the one figure of the group with naturally white hair that descended down to his lumbar. Joshiro Amano. Her first crush and the big brother of the gang. He taught her everything as she grew up, gave her her first bokken, which she had broken over a prejudiced teacher's kneecap, earning her the nickname of Kenpachi. He had even gotten her a white leather trench coat with the kanji 剣八 (literally: Kenpachi, or "sword demon") stitched into its spine. Retsu still had the coat too; it was one of her most prized possessions and was hanging in her closet next to a steel-cored mahogany bokken.
Sadly, Joshiro never got to see his late twenties. She had pushed herself to the absolute limit to become licensed and knowledgeable enough to treat him, but because of all the bureaucracy and red tape on top of the fact that she had a "useless quirk", by the time she was a fully licensed doctor qualified enough to operate, he was already in stage four metastasis. The cancer had spread from his lungs to numerous parts of his body too fast and her superior didn't want a "no-named guttersnipe that might as well be quirkless" to ruin the prestigious name of the hospital. She fought long and hard, but in the end, due to how she was born, a friend closer to her than her own family died.
After that, she cut herself off from the world, diving deep into her studies. She no longer wanted to be just a doctor; she had to be the best, she had to become renowned enough that when she shut down the hospital that rebuked her, the world would recognize that she wasn't to be trifled with. It was how she met Naoru, someone who was of like mind. Together with Hakeru Shuzenji, Naoru's then fiance, they caused the hospital to go through a major overhaul. The last time Retsu had checked, Naoru was still the holder of the decisive votes due to all three of them buying a large percentage of the stocks from the board and gaining commanding interest.
Naoru had opened the doors to all, quirked or not, breathing new life into the neighborhood and horrifying it in one move. Ninety percent of the influx went from being simple quirk-related injuries to a quirk-on-quirkless violence. Something that worried Retsu, as she might be targeted and couldn't be sure how much she would need to hold back from hurting someone. Come to find out, she needed to hold back more than she did, and though Naoru fought long and hard against it, the courts and legislation that came from a doctor removing a patient's ability to use his hand ruined her reputation. She was disgraced in the media to the point that, in an effort to save Naoru and the hospital from the same fate, she resigned from her post.
Yuuei hadn't even wanted her as the nurse, but with a lot of pressure from highly respected families like the Hiraoka and a letter of recommendation from Naoru, they took her in with very clear stipulations that the second she stepped out of line, she was fired. Or at least, that's what the board of directors said. The principal was over the moon with having such an esteemed surgeon working for him.
Retsu sighed and set down her pen as the floating stretcher bots brought in another sports festival contestant. Just from a glance, she could tell he had a broken leg, not that it was difficult to tell since it was bent at the tibia ninety degrees backward with the fibula poking out of the fibularis longus muscle and the skin. Oh, she had watched the fight and saw how Aizawa got injured. From
her observations, the Nozomi boy had stood up too quickly in an effort to catch the kick and didn't put any give to the force, releasing a shockwave of displaced air. Had Aizawa's foot not been so close to his head, the green boy would have probably made it out unscathed.
'Speak of the devil and in he walks,' Retsu thought as the door opened again and Nana Masumi walked in guiding the very person she was thinking about. Chiyo, the poor lass, let out a gasp as she ran over to the boy and the two girls began working him over to a bed. Retsu just rolled her eyes half-heartedly before walking over and looking at the boy.
Minor injury, burst veins and capillaries in eyes, mouth, ears, and nasal cavity, specifically the maxilla wall tissue, some perforation to the eardrum. Untreated: potential for severe infection, possible death, minimal possibility. Hemorrhage of the central retinal vein could lead to possible loss of vision. Overall assessment, manageable.
"My goodness, Mr. Nozomi, you could have simply dodged. Instead, you caused two injuries that could have been avoided. Oh well." Retsu opened her hand over Izuku's forehead and focused, a pale green vapor-like light shining from her palm. She watched the blood recede back into the skin with great intent, the dried blood gaining wetness and joining the flow as Nozomi's eyes returned to their green coloration. Her heartbeat quickened from the sight of the wet crimson life fluid.
Zaraki was going to get a pounding when she got home.
Since the dawn of quirks, there has been a social divide. It started simple; a baby shone with a bright incandescence one night in some hospital in China, and from there the world changed. At first, those who had power were those who biologically didn't, capturing and studying those who were born changed. Eventually, there was a revolution and the world spiraled out of control, casting the world into a new dark age and forcing humanity to come to terms with a new truth: Mankind was evolving. Each day, new powers were discovered and each day, a "normal" person died. Eventually, the "quirkless" became the minority of the global population.
The hatred remained, however, lingering in the recesses of the collective's mind. The "quirked" never forgot the evil the "quirkless" had done to their predecessors, never let go of the pain their ancestors felt and lashed out at them, secluded them, destroyed their hopes and dashed their dreams. There were those who did nothing to cause harm, believing themselves to be the better people, but these were also the ones that never offered a helping hand. This grew worse for the ones without quirks when a new age dawned: the Age of Heroes.
Sure, there were a few quirkless heroes, some who took it upon themselves to rise up for the betterment of their percentage, who used their knowledge and skills to try and bring light to their plight, but they never lasted long. Some had friends willing to help them by making mechanical marvels, only to see their friends turn their backs to them when the going got tough, leading them to fall into despair and anguish.
There were some lucky ones, however. Some stood as beacons for the ones without powers, but their beacons were dim in the darkness of the past. Some even drew inspiration from the pre-quirk era comics, dressing in dark armor and pushing their bodies to the limits, but they were deemed too violent and were arrested within a few months for aggravated assault. Eventually, the idea of quirkless heroes faded to the background, sinking like a ship cast in a storm, to be forgotten and ignored.
This was the life of Aoryuu Futaru.
When he was a child, his family was happy and loving and he wanted for nothing. His father was well respected in his firm, his mother was a socialite in their neighborhood, and he had friends that loved to be around him.
Until he turned ten.
Unlike his peer group, Aoryuu didn't get his quirk at the age of four. He didn't see his powers come in at eight. What he did see is the hesitance around him; smiles became strained, his parents began to fight, friends began to drift away from him. It became worse when the doctor showed his parents the x-ray of his feet. Suddenly, no one wanted anything to do with his family. All the friendships he made evaporated and became toxic. His best friend became his worst bully, his parents divorced and his mother ran off and got remarried while his father drank himself into an early grave. At age twelve, he was alone in the world.
The school was enforced by the government until he completed middle school, and jobs were impossible to maintain because of his quirkless nature. The woman who was placed as his caretaker by the government took everything he was left with by his father and cast him into the streets when he finished the mandatory schooling, leaving him penniless and bitter.
There was one light in his life, however, one shining hope: his Asuna. The girl who stood up for him, stood by him through it all. She worked hard to help him back on his feet whenever life kicked him down, she helped shoulder his burdens and made the world seem brighter with a smile. She was his everything.
When he had saved up enough money, he bought a ring and was trying to work up the courage to ask her the important words when he thought to surprise her at her work. What he found instead of happy tears was that of a broken heart. He could hear cries of passion and pleasure from the outside of her office, her lover's grunts of exertion. All his world crashed to his feet in shambles of broken dreams and something inside him snapped.
When Aoryuu came back to awareness, the two were on the ground bleeding, the coworker's head was caved in and she had the flowers he had brought forced down her throat with reddening bruises on her neck. The ring he had worked so hard to buy was sitting in the palm of his hand, covered in her blood. He wiped it off. She was no longer worthy of the symbol of love. She had betrayed him just like everyone else eventually did.
A thought went through his mind as a laugh bubbled in his chest: if everyone betrayed him, why not make someone who wouldn't? Just like the ancient myth, he would sculpt a partner from the refuse that hurt him and earn her undying love! And what better materials than that of the ones who had wronged him? Starting with his ex-girlfriend and her lover!
It took longer than he had envisioned; one had an arm that was too long, another had the wrong skin complexion, this one had a weird freckle that was out of place, this one had the wrong muscle formation. It was infuriating that he kept having to start over and over, but like the sculptor whose name he related to, he wasn't going to give up. She had to be perfect, she had to be the best, she had to be his Galatea.
Detective Isshin Kayama sighed hard into his coffee as he exhaustedly looked around the room. If he could be anywhere in the world right now, he'd be at Yuuei cheering on his son as Sousuke fought in the preliminaries, but instead, he was here at the scene of yet another murder from Pygmalion. He was getting better at... whatever he was doing. Isshin knelt down by the discarded carcass of the RN Rukia Yukimora and observed how the bones and cartilage had been removed with almost surgical precision. The wet splatter of vomit into a plastic bag shook him from his reverie as a deputy that lost his lunch.
Looking back at the grisly scene before him and around the room, he noted several things. For starters, the tv. It had been the noise complaints that had brought the police here, before they called Isshin. It was on the loudest settings set to the sports festival broadcast. From the way the DVR presented, Pygmalion had started watching around noon, when the first event ended for the first years, but when did he leave? The broadcast showed that they were about to begin the next round of the fights, some Masumi girl against Shiretoko. One floated on purple lightning and the other had blades coming out of every which way on his body. It barely lasted half a minute; the purple
girl was in front of the Gigan wannabe before he could blink, and then he was entering the stratosphere with a toe kick from purple Raiden. She caught the falling star, but that didn't change how she probably shattered the boy's ego (not to mention his jaw).
Still, why was the killer watching the sports festival? Why did he leave before they were finished? What was the killer's goal? He had too many questions and not enough answers.
First victim: Asuna Shiyozaki, age: twenty-six, cause of death: strangulation. Flowers found at the scene and the only other victim with her present; possible ex-lover.
Second victim: Hao Nakamura, age: forty-seven, cause of death: bludgeoning by a fire extinguisher. State of undress and condom indicates killer caught Nakamura and Shiyozaki coupling and lost sense of reason. Forensics show that the later injuries to the head of Shiyozaki were post-mortem. The killer, for some reason, removed her brain. From Nakamura, the eyes had been removed but left on the scene in a cup of water, likely a botched attempt evidenced by the crushed orb in one of the cups. Bodies were found the next day by janitorial staff.
That had been a year ago.
Since then, multiple murders and grisly creations had been found all over Japan, some more grotesque than others, and Miss Yukimora was the next to suffer the fate of previous victims. It didn't seem like the killer had a prescribed look he was aiming for, no cause for the victim other than he wanted to take something from them. The question was: why?
"Sir, I think we have something," one of the deputies said.
"Ladies and Gentlemen! That last round was absolutely explosive! Let's hear it for Musutafu's Azure Beast, Kosaku Sosaki, and Akira Kazuraba, the lady that makes you reconsider how dangerous a rainbow can be! This brings us to a close for round one of the tournament. We will now take a few moments for refreshments and when we return, the human pinball, Sorahiko Torino will take on the human Malboro, Kota Feng!"
Sorahiko paced in his waiting room, waiting for the next match to start. Feng was, by all accounts, a right bastard, a fact evident from how he played with Oogami last round before knocking her out. Question was, how? How had he made the normally cool and collected Homura Oogami lose her calm like that?
The light by the door began flashing, letting Sorahiko know it was time for his match. However, despite several calming breaths, on his way out of the tunnel, the question wouldn't clear from his mind. What had Feng done?
The question rang louder in his mind when Sorahiko entered the ring and saw the smug look on Feng's face. The arrogance coming off of the other student seemed to seep into his skin, like he knew he was going to win. It was infuriating!
'Wait.' Sorahiko furrowed his brow as realization dawned. 'Status Effect. His quirk lets him displace a cloud that affects the body chemistry, meaning... so that's it, he—'
"Sorahiko Torino. You know, I read up on you. Grew up with Chiyo Shuzenji and Nana Masumi, went to the same elementary school before your parents moved you to another prefecture." Sorahiko squinted at Feng as the boy gave a toothy smirk. "Long time to know someone like that. I would be willing to bet you even began to have a crush on Man-hands. Then Nana's dojo teacher took on a second student and suddenly there's competition. If you could call it that, I mean; Nozomi's Full Cowling or whatever he calls it makes little feet farts look like chump change."
Sora choked on his tongue. 'He's baiting you, Torino, just move, don't bite,' he kept repeating in his mind through the cloud of annoyance that was beginning to fog his mind. He took a deep breath and pushed the air out the soles of his feet hard enough to propel him across the ring, aiming a dropkick to Feng's mid-section. Kota Feng stepped to the side with a laugh.
"I mean, have you seen his abs and the way Masumi has been trying to hoard Nozomi's attention? Compared to his physical presence, no one is going to notice the white-haired delinquent, are they?" Feng dodged another kick as Sora rocketed by him. "Why, it's almost like you know you're pathetic in comparison. I watched them at lunch and I never see you join them, sitting in a corner by yourself like an emo. Meanwhile, ol' Man-hands is making googly eyes at Superman, making me want to vomit." Sorahiko dropped down to try and sweep Feng's legs out from under him, only for the shorter teen to jump over the blow.
Sora couldn't understand it; how was Feng's quirk affecting him? Feng wasn't releasing his cloud! Even if it were a clear mist, he should have felt wetness on his skin. He wasn't wrong though, Sora was jealous of Izuku. He literally came out of nowhere and suddenly Sora didn't feel as close to Nana as he had throughout their childhood. Like she was drifting away and he couldn't catch her. He felt alone and the anger was building up inside him.
"I heard they live in the same apartment too! Think they've fucked yet? I bet they do it every night. Nozomi probably bends her over and goes to town all while laughing about how he stole her from you." Izuku wasn't like that, he was too oblivious. Right?
"And Chiyo," Feng smirked as he gave an exaggerated chef's kiss. "That has to be one of the tightest asses I've seen around the school. Shame though, rumor has it that it's pay to play with her though. "
Sora stopped moving and stared at Feng in horror. He had to be lying. He had to be, Chiyo wasn't like that.
"See the thing is, I don't like the way Nozomi prances around the school like he owns the place. Like he owns my territory. My women . So I tell you what, now that I'm finished with you, I'm going to use my quirk to destroy him completely. After all, there can only be one top hero here and that's going to be me."
Sora stared at Feng as his vision turned red, heat building up inside of him as he pushed a pressurized lungful out of his feet, slamming his fist into Feng's chin. Sadly, in his rage, he lost control of his momentum once he landed the blow and spun out of control, landing in a roll outside the ring. He shook his head and began to get up, only to see Feng staring at him with unrestrained malicious glee.
"Like I said, I was finished with you. As if Farting Feet could beat me. Get lost, loser. You're not even hero material."
Nana peeked through the door frame as she watched Sora beat his fist on the door of a locker in his rage. Chiyo was standing beside her, trying not to squeak as something cracked from the impact. It was heartbreaking to see Sora like this. After a couple of minutes, she couldn't just stand there anymore and stepped out from behind the doorway and into the room, clearing her throat.
"So, you done?" she asked when he looked at her. "Why do you care?"
"I care because you're my friend." Nana crossed her arms.
Sora stared at her for a moment like he couldn't understand what she said before his face twisted in anger. "Oh, so now you're my friend? Well, I'm glad you remembered me! Ever since ol' green bean came into the picture, everyone has been hunky-dorey so well they forgot all about Torino until he got his ass kicked and then all of a sudden we're friends again!"
"Oh, that is bullshit! You're the one who started doing things without us!"
Sora threw his hands into the air. "Of course I did; no one would listen to me. You were too busy making goo-goo eyes at Mr. I-can-do-no-wrong and spreading your legs for him while—"
The sound of a slap echoed around the room. Chiyo looked on with wide eyes as Nana lowered her hand and glared at him before turning and stomping out of the room. Sora stared at her retreating head with shock before sitting down and putting his head in his hands.
"You know, it used to be easy on us," Chiyo said as she moved to take one of his hands and looked over where it was swelling. "Used to be, we were thicker than thieves, just existing with a smile."
Sora looked down at his toes as she used her quirk on his hand. "This isn't the Sora who stood up to those bullies and saved me a decade ago. He was a kind and caring boy who wouldn't let anyone come between him and his friends. Whatever Feng said to you in that arena, ignore it."
"Chiyo, he said you were a prostitute."
"Ok, we bury him six feet under in the Okinawa swamps and then we ignore it."
Sora sighed and leaned his head back to look at the ceiling as Chiyo moved to sit beside him.
"Why are you so suspicious of Izuku?" she asked, bumping his elbow with hers.
"He just appeared out of nowhere and no one has even batted an eye at him. Just accepted him."
"I'm sure Rokuoh knows what he is doing and Nana trusts him. Plus, Nana isn't stupid, Sora, you know that." Chiyo put her hands between her knees and kicked out her feet.
"She never was that, no. Still, she wears her heart on her sleeve. I just don't want her to get hurt," he said before looking down at Chiyo, meeting her eyes for a moment before she turned away with a slight blush.
"You know, I was always jealous of how you looked at Nana sometimes," she said after a couple of moments. Sora furrowed his brows for a moment as he looked at her. After a few minutes of silence, she slapped his knee and stood up. "You have an apology to make. Probably best to let her vent first; you know how powerful her quirk can be. In the meantime, try giving Izuku a chance. Sure he has secrets, but Nana seems to be ok with that. Just speak with him," she said before she kissed his cheek and scurried out of the room.
Sora touched his cheek where she kissed him before turning to the screen that was displaying Izuku covered in green and white electricity as he ducked and wove through a massive spider web to where Yuria Mitsugu sat in the center of the ring, waiting with what looked like a bolo made of webs. The kind, friendly smile on Nozomi's face as he danced through the sticky material and the laughing shudders of Mitsugu made Sora wonder.
Maybe, just this once, he could try to trust someone new.
Mama Had High High Hopes, But All I Got Were The Nat Ones
Chapter Summary
"If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't."
Lyall Watson
Chapter Notes
sorry this took so long, its getting harder and harder to write for MHA as I personally have started to become disenfranchised with the series and the authors bad character development. I have so many ideas in the works for this story, but with the lack of motivation, I'm afraid they may not see fruition.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Rokuoh pressed his forehead to a wall, letting the cool stone steal the heat from his body. The arrival of his wife to the emergency room had been a whirlwind of activity, rushing her into operation to save her life. That had been an hour ago. Then news about the school bombings and the red-eyed Izumi Orimoto caused his world to fall apart. It was everything he could do to hold himself together and be strong for his wife. It was everything he could do to keep himself from howling in agony.
All for One.
The demon of the underworld, the boogeyman of crime, the unseen threat. The immortal villain.
Rokuoh couldn't prove it to anyone, but he knew it had to be him, the same villain who had killed his mentor, Banjo, and had hunted each One for All wielder before him. Now he was targeting Rokuoh and his pride. Jeri was in critical condition and Takuya, Rokuoh's bright sun, was dead, and there was nothing the sixth wielder could do but stare into the ominous ambience of the indicator light of the operating room as little Izumi bawled in a corner.
Due to the quick heroics of Takuya, she had been the only survivor of her entire school.
Rokuoh hated himself for the dark thoughts that drifted across his mind, the part of him that wanted to hate the young butterfly. The part that wanted to claim that he would trade the young girl for his son in a heartbeat. The darkest part of the large lion that roared with despair only a father could feel.
His unbeatable fairy queen was fighting for her life, and his cub was little more than... he quickly broke away from that train of thought as his stomach tried to rebel.
There was little noise in the waiting room other than the racking sobs of the butterfly child and the tv showing the sports festival. The other people in the room seemed to understand the need for silence as they meandered around the obnoxiously white area.
He broke his gaze away from the door, from pleading to every god that the surgeon would come out with something, to glance at the television to see Izuku, the curious little time traveler, offer a girl with white hair and eight eyes a hand as she sat outside of the platform on the grass, a deep look of disappointment on her face. The boy said something that caused her to jerk her head up to look at the boy in astonishment before she took his hand with a small smile. It almost made the large lion sob as a memory flickered in his mind of him doing the same thing for his cub when Rokuoh was training him.
By the gods, let Jeri be all right. If she didn't make it, Rokuoh didn't know if he could.
Kota Feng glared at the screen as he watched the green bean golden boy chat happily with the freak-show spider on the way into the tunnel. The idiot had had her on the ropes! He could have won! What did he do instead? He let the freak of nature set up the board and then played one touch hide-and-seek of all things! It was insulting! All his power and what? He holds back from putting a mutant bitch in her place?
The more he watched, the more he hated his father. That green lightning should have been Kota's, not some green-haired nobody that didn't understand that his place was to be stepped on by his social betters. The elder Feng should have negotiated with the broker for a better quirk than poofing mist clouds.
Sure, when his father had bought Status Effect, Kota had seen it as a godsend to control his father's business empire. Now, however? Now he could see that Masumi and Nozomi could move faster than it would take for the effect to affect them, making it completely useless! It wasn't fair! That
strength should be his!
'Wait,' a voice in his mind said, causing him to quit throwing his tantrum. When the voice spoke, it
always had good advice.
This time was no different, and he grew a maniacal smirk while listening to the voice speak. Yes,
yes that would work nicely!
Nana bowed to her opponent, Akari Tsukimura, as Liquididot brought her hand down. Almost immediately Nana was on the back step, trying to avoid laser beams that flashed from Akari's prismatic fingers. Every time she tried to pull on the lavender lightning of One for All, a beam of white hot light streaked across her skin, lightly burning her.
It was clear that Akari had trained for years to master her powers with how pinpoint her beams seemed to be, just missing far enough to let Nana know that they could've been aimed closer and better. At this point, Nana was relying solely on her instincts to weave through the light, trying desperately to concentrate enough to pull One for All to a comfortable level. Right now, all she had was the low flow of power she always kept it as.
This was getting her nowhere.
She pushed off the ground as hard as she could and pulled on Float to lock herself into the air. It would be draining to hold, but she needed more room to move. Pulling a leaf out of Izuku's book, she began to flick her fingers to create bursts of air to move her out of the way of the prismatic lights Crystal Fingers shot at her. Nana winced as she felt the heat from one beam she hadn't quite been quick enough to dodge sear her skin, causing an angry red color to overtake her normal bronze tan.
Nana's breath was slow, short, and controlled. Her mind was clear and devoid of stray thoughts as she learned to kick off the air, something she'd otherwise be celebrating but couldn't right now. For every shot she dodged, two more lightly grazed her, burning her skin and causing her to flinch. 'I have to try for a counter,' she thought and began to weave between the beams, getting closer and closer to her opponent. Then, Nana got the opening she needed.
One For All ignited in her legs, and with it, she kicked off. A trailing sonic boom followed in her wake, bringing the realization that she'd been baited. She saw her opponents smirk about half a
second too late, and in a testament to her reflexes, was able to hurl herself out of the way, suffering a burn to her arm in the process. And she was back to dodging the ultra fast beams with increasing difficulty. Nana flinched slightly as she felt them sear past her; the burns on her legs and arms were testament to their sheer temperature as the slightly scorched skin pulsed fresh pain through her nerves.
A scent hit her nose as she avoided a charged beam of light, a slightly sweet smell that tickled her nose and made her mind feel fuzzy. She paused for a moment to clear her mind; the smell was distracting as all get out. As she jetted under another beam, the smell of burned hair cleared the fog in her mind momentarily before it came back with a vengeance.
She giggled drunkenly. It was kind of intoxicating, the way it seemed to set her body all sparky and tingly. It really didn't matter that up seemed to be down and she had no way to tell left from right. The scent drifted across her nose again and it was as if she was cast into the universe. She could see every ridge on her fingerprints as though she could skip along them, each one growing hands so that they could wave at her.
Liquididot was waving, but in her clouded mind, Nana couldn't understand what she was saying. She rested her hand on the wall beside her and shook her head.
She blinked and turned to stare at the smooth surface. How...?
The world rushed in at a crystal clarity, adding to Nana's confusion as she looked around with widened eyes. The announcer's voice finally broke through the remaining fuzziness of her mind.
"—and that wraps up the second round, everyone! With a wall touch ring-out, Akari Tsukimura will be moving forward to the quarter finals!"
What? But she was... what?
He stared at the screen with a raised eyebrow. Two successors? Could his brother's power be shared like that? It would make sense; the quirk seemed to gain power each time it was passed on to a new generation. Evidently, it had grown to exceed the normal human body's limits, so the cat
must've had to split the succession.
The Demon of the Underworld turned his head to stare at the new trophy on the wall. It was a bit crude and most certainly not his best work, shoddy as it was. Then again, it wasn't the butterfly he had intended, but a kitten. After all, what would hurt a father but to go after his progeny?
He hadn't outright killed the boy; the kitten had the chance to survive, crucified as he was. It had been difficult to find him in the rubble, but All for One was nothing if not thorough, and he wanted to make sure the kitten's demise was absolute. And yet, despite all factors and variables, the boy still clung to life! It was curious, and he simply had to find out why.
A point-blank explosion that left most of the class nothing more than a greasy smear on the wall had barely seared the boy's skin. From trial and error, he had discerned the cause: the boy was like a small Nemean lion! A mutation quirk that made the child look like daddy dearest, with some of mother's influence, of course, but the immature quirk made the boy nearly invulnerable!
Nearly.
Oh, if given some time to mature, the lord of crime was sure that the quirk would truly live up to the legend, but as it was at the moment, the effect was like that of a crab whose shell was still in the process of hardening: vulnerable. It did take some effort, but it hadn't been impossible to pin the boy to the wall. Now, to figure out how his quirk worked. Maybe that new scientist All for One had met would enjoy the task? He offered such promise, this doctor: a ready supply of quirks and this tantalizing idea of creating unstoppable soldiers—Nomu, the doctor had called them.
All for One let out a deep chuckle. Yes, that would be deliciously deviant, setting Hiraoka's own son against him! Why, it would more than make up for the minion All for One had splattered over the scene to mask the boy's abduction. Shame, that. Body Double was a valuable resource, with his ability to sneak into places and carry out covert missions by copying their DNA signature. Oh well. It was inconsequential. After all, the man's son could do something of a similar manner and didn't seem to have the problem of being locked into the shift. With the proper guidance, the bloodline could bear fruit that could truly work well. Maybe shed the disguise like some sort of snake would shed its skin?
Irrelevant, but worth watching. A project he could guide from the shadows like he was with the Hikitsuga and the Midoriya families. Eventually he planned to merge them and mix the genes. So far, the Midoriyas were able to produce some form of fire production from their bodies. Another generation would most likely have fire breathing. Simple and ineffective, but if combined with what the Hikitsuga was predicted to produce, a true-blue pyrokinetic should be born.
The thought was absolutely worth salivating over. True control over fire, not like the pretend version of the Todoroki clan. All that fire but no control whatsoever. All his time trying to cultivate the fire quirk and the fools disregarded his suggestion for a quirk marriage . How infuriating!
All for One slung his wine glass to the side with a growl, ignoring the whimper from the wall art as the glass shattered on its skin. The Todoroki would pay for thinking they knew quirks better. Oh, yes. They would truly rue the day they chose to disregard his advice, but that was tomorrow's investment.
Turning back to the screen, he watched the female successor try to figure out what happened. It was a simple deduction, after all; the villain easily recognized Status Cloud, having once had it in his own repertoire. It had been a mostly worthless quirk, easily countered if the target knew they were being affected by the quirk.
Confused? Stop acting and wait, the effect would clear up in a few moments. Berserk? Aim yourself at the source and let go. Poisoned? Drink milk.
The effects were simple to deal with, not that he had told the Feng that. After all, if they tried to turn the effects on him, then All for One wanted to have cards to play, the blackmail material he had gathered notwithstanding. After all, why stack the deck when you can own the casino?
Lost in thought as he was, the villain didn't miss how furious the ameteur sabator looked when the female inheritor only got a ring out. Apparently, the boy had been expecting her to be at least more than a little frazzled by the weak light beams. How immature.
What the boy didn't understand was that pain was like a fine sculpture. It had to be carved into one's being with patience and temperance. It had to be worked and fashioned into a crescendo of agony so delicious that the screams were almost musical.
A ping on his console pulled him from his musings. He hummed in amusement as he scanned the grovelling fluff while reading between the lines about how the henchmen he had tasked with what should have been a simple operation of pruning a genetic tree had failed. He typed in a simple happy message with a hint about how their spine would look extravagant as tinsel for a christmas tree, fluffed with a bit of general encouragement. After all, All for One would hate to have to kill such a hard working quirk—erm, employee.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" Visor's voice blared through the speakers, "Welcome all to the semi- finals of this year's sport festival! Folks, let me tell you something, we have two humdingers of fights lined up. First up! The human lightning rod of viridian fury, Izuku Nozomi, vs the heir of Feng Industries, the human morbol with status effects aplenty, Kota Feng! After that guaranteed slobber knocker, we have the walking fortress that no force can besiege, Renji Tsuchikawa, vs the laser show of pain, Akari Tsukimura! Folks, I can only speculate the absolute throwdown we're about to see today!"
Liquididot was standing in the middle of the field watching the first semi-finalists walk into the arena, one with a determined frown on his face and the other with a cocky grin showing many white teeth. She almost shuddered as she felt rage course through her body before she slapped her face.
Status Effect was no joke, though why? She looked at the green-haired kid and felt a cold chill slide down her spine with the rage in the boy's eyes as green and white lightning sparked around him. There was some form of dark shadowy miasma rolling and twisting around his arms as he stepped onto the platform. What was this kid?
She called for ready and got the barest of hints of a nod from the green-haired boy and a giddy yes from the Feng boy. Before she even finished dropping her hand, the green boy exploded, red veins glowing all over his body as he brought his fist down on where Feng had been standing. The blond boy had rolled to the side, the confident smirk dropped and replaced with a look of absolute fear. It was the same old face she normally saw on villains she put down to sleep in fights.
It was at this moment that Feng knew he had fucked up.
'Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck' was the only thought in Feng's head as he ducked and dodged the berserk Vice President of 1-A. Maybe using his quirk to drive the boy into such a frenzy wasn't such a good idea, as it was all he could do to dodge the mindless savage of a brute that was normally a smiling ball of wholesome. It wasn't helping that Feng could hear every creak and groan of the boy's body, every snap and pop as another bone broke from the sheer power Nozomi radiated.
He had to outlast him; that had been the plan. Drive him berserk and outlast him until the feedback of the quirk broke him beyond fighting ability. That didn't look like a possibility now! Kota rolled to the side as a torrent of air flew past him, pelting the fool with flying debris that grated and tore at his skin. Why had this sounded like such a good idea? How much had this plebno, walking natural disaster—been holding back?
The berserk lightning force let out a roar of pain as inky black tendrils exploded from his body and began lashing around, ripping up tiles from the platform and either crushing solid concrete or slinging it out in random directions.
"Liquididot, help me! I give up! I surrender! I admit that I sabotaged Masumi, I made her confused! Help me!" he screamed as a black tendril wrapped around his heel and lifted him into the air.
His antigravitation was short-lived; an arm in the shape of a blade sliced through the tendril, allowing Liquididot to pull Kota away from the mass of writhing tentacles.
'What was going on?'
Kota couldn't fathom what he was seeing; there was no quirk this powerful! It made no sense! It wasn't fair!
Those were his thoughts until he looked up and felt terror.
He looked up and saw something that would haunt him to the end of his days. Peering through the steam and black tendrils was a pair of pure white, glowing eyes that stared into Kota's soul. There was power radiating out of the corners of the weirdly shaped silhouettes, so much so that it seemed to bleed off into the steam and heat radiating off the mass of black in the corona of tendrils. The ground shook and thundered around him, but Kota could look nowhere else as the mass roared at him.
Liquididot stood protectively in front of the shaken blond, both of her arms in the form of blades of ice as pillars of night slammed down around him. Then all the noise ceased.
Everything was quiet.
Kota must have blinked because Liquididot was no longer standing in front of him. Instead, she was kneeling beside a small form, yelling something. Blood spurted from the area, but while her body kept the Feng heir from seeing the source, it was enough to snap him out of his stupor. Without a second glance, Kota turned and ran out of the arena.
Chapter End Notes
Special thanks to Reaf Darksbane over in Fireside Tales, where I hang out. Look for the glow of my neon halo!
If you want a more direct way to find me, come on over to my server, Halo's Extreme Disconnect
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