Be careful with him. He's not what he seems.

Ingenium's words echoed in Midoriya's skull under the flashing lights of the police cars. He watched from the sidelines as the injured vigilante was put in restraints. How could Sir Nighteye be something other than he seemed? He'd worked with All Might, been his sidekick. His agency's record had been impeccable. The current number one hero, Lemillion, had trained at his agency. Could he really trust a vigilante's words over Sir Nighteye's?

Just his luck that Ingenium's place would be on Kacchan's turf.

Kacchan looked exhausted, his costume fresh but the rest of him tired, and Midoriya had half a mind to ask him why he hadn't sent a sidekick out to deal with the arrest. One glare from the explosion hero had Midoriya thinking better of it. Ingenium was a real threat, of course Kacchan wanted to be there in case the vigilante changed his mind about being taken in. He stood to one side, feeling a little useless as the police and the licensed heroes dealt with the paperwork and loaded Ingenium into a van. His death and resurrection had renewed his body, but his mind felt as if it was fraying.

"Oi, Deku." Kacchan strode over to where Midoriya was standing, nostrils flared with irritation. "You're coming with me." He jerked his thumb to the vehicle parked behind the police van where Ingenium was being loaded.

Midoriya nodded. Kacchan had bought the vehicle that the others had referred to as the Riotmobile, all pristine red paint and black metal spikes. Kacchan hopped in without opening the door, and watched Midoriya tight-lipped from the driver's seat as he got in.

Midoriya sank backwards into the passenger seat, the enormity of everything that had happened that day sinking in. All he wanted to do was close his eyes for a second, but he couldn't afford to sleep right now, not with Ingenium's words clattering round in his head. You have an understanding of what's at stake. Midoriya shook his head, discarding the notion, and Kacchan glowered at him.

Midoriya chewed his thumb absently as they followed the secure van that held Ingenium, wishing he'd had more time to question the vigilante. He needed Kacchan's help with this. And that meant asking him about the other heroes in the top ten. But how to broach it? He couldn't go straight in. Could he?

"I've got questions," Kacchan interrupted Midoriya's chain of thought with a growl. "And this time that dweeb from round-face's agency isn't gonna fucking protect you."

"Questions?" Midoriya repeated. They followed the van down a near-empty highway, the floodlights above reflecting in the Riotmobile's curved windows as they drove.

Kacchan grunted an affirmative. "Yeah. Like how come Himiko Toga's so fucking interested in you. How come the day after your debut there's a disaster only the incredible Deku can deal with?"

"I-" Midoriya opened his mouth and closed it again.

"And how come you manage to track down a vigilante who's been on the run for years in the space of hours?" Kacchan shook his head. "Smells like shit to me."

For all his bluster and bluntness, Kacchan had never been stupid. "I don't know." Midoriya shook his head. "I know that's not a convincing story, but that's all I've got. What do you expect me to say? That I've been working with Ingenium all along?" He frowned. Telling a lie to his childhood friend sat wrong with him, whatever their relationship now. "He turned up in the powerplant. I'd never seen him before that." Though Ingenium had certainly been aware of Midoriya for longer. He'd known his forum username. "I tracked him down from the radiation."

"Hah." Kacchan sounded more pleased with himself than angry. "Knew you couldn't have done it all yourself."

"You're not angry at me?"

"For what?" Kacchan's eyebrow quirked. "Stealing all the glory?" His red eyes were on the road again. "I don't suppose Toga turned up too? Give you a fucking hand?"

"What are you trying to imply?" Midoriya's brows knotted. "That I've been working with the liberation front all along, and they orchestrated all of this? Kacchan, I was quirkless. I was worse than dirt to those guys."

"Feh." Kacchan's sneer was tangible. "I guess they wouldn't work with a dweeb like you." They turned a corner, onto a stretch of road that Midoriya didn't recognise, leading out of the city, and Kacchan frowned at the road ahead. "Why were you asking me about round-face?"

Midoriya closed his eyes. Sir Nighteye had said not to trust anyone with his mission, but he could trust Kacchan, couldn't he?

"There's a spy in the hero association," said Midoriya. "Somewhere near the top."

"What!?" Bakugou turned to stare at him, and Midoriya frantically gestured for him to focus on the road. They narrowly missed a heavy lorry as the pro-hero regained control of the car. "Who?"

"I was hoping you could help me with that," said Midoriya, and Kacchan's shoulders slumped.

"Well, it's not roundface," he said, with a snort. "She's had opportunity, sure, but she can't lie for shit. You can rule out number one, too, for that matter."

"Lemillion? Why?"

"He's more powerful than All Might," said Kacchan, a little sourly. "And I mean Golden Age All Might, punch for punch. If Lemillion was with the enemy, we'd have a bigger problem than some fucking spying."

"Galeforce?" Midoriya asked, thinking of the powerhouse number five.

"That idiot?" Kacchan gave a snort. "He failed his provisional license exam because he didn't realise that hot air goes up. He's too braindead to be a double agent."

"Are you going to say that about the whole top ten?" asked Midoriya.

Kacchan grinned to himself. "Pretty much, yeah. Nejire's a fucking airhead, you've met half-and-half, that fucking anthropromorphic washing machine is pretty much only interested in his commercial tie-ins, Fumikage's semi-retired-" he counted off the members of the top ten on one gloved hand as he steered with the other.

There was an obvious name missing from that list. "And Red Riot?" Midoriya asked as they approached the bridge that linked Tartarus to the mainland, the suspension cables dark against the hazy, light-polluted sky.

"My partner?" Kacchan barked. "You're asking me to tell you if my fucking partner is the traitor."

"Is he?" Midoriya pressed as they pulled up outside Tartarus and waited for the police van to go in. The complex looked bigger than when he'd seen it on the television, windowless reinforced concrete brooding over the night-time sea, floodlights lighting up its face like a kid telling a scary story at a campfire.

Kacchan gave a growling noise in his throat. "You're lucky you're fucking immortal, you know that? He's not. I would have noticed." He glared at Midoriya, his eyes a challenge, and for the first time Midoriya felt like Kacchan was hiding something.

They idled for a moment more outside the gates of the villain prison complex as the van went in, Kacchan looking more bored and tired than anything else.

"We're not going in?" Midoriya asked.

Kacchan shook his head. "Security in there's a pain in the ass. We'll be here if he makes a break for it." He glanced at Midoriya. "Not that you'd be much use against him."

Midoriya ignored the jibe, thinking back to that year's hero ranking chart and ticking each number off in his head. Wash had been number ten, of course, and Galeforce had been five. "That leaves Countdown," he said, softly.

Kacchan pulled a face, his eyes on the gates. "That arrogant quirk-copying bastard?" He sniffed. "I've never liked him."

"You don't like lots of people," said Midoriya. "That's hardly damning."

"It's more than that, idiot." Kacchan snorted. "It's the creepy cult he calls an agency. And too many villains dying when he takes them in," he said. "It's always an escape attempt, or a suicide, of course. If All Might was still around, he'd be under investigation, but right now the Association won't fucking touch him."

"It could be accidental," Midoriya ventured.

"Bullshit," Kacchan spat. "He could pick nonlethal quirks to use if he wanted. He could pick the perfect counter to any villain."

"His real power isn't so much in having multiple quirks," said Midoriya, quoting an article on Countdown from memory. "It's how he uses them. He can pick and choose- or combine several quirks into a gestalt-"

"Shut up, I knew that," said Kacchan. He grimaced, teeth showing. "It's just like that bastard who killed All Might."

Midoriya blinked, mind going back to where he had been that night, his hero's crumpled body on the television screen, burning into his eyes. "I've seen all the footage of that fight," he said, slowly. "There was too much debris to see the techniques his opponent was using."

"But you weren't actually there," said Kacchan, a rough edge to his voice. "I was." His voice shifted, imitating someone else. "Regeneration. Super Strength. Radiation Control. He was fighting exactly like Monoma does."

Midoriya sank back into his seat. "That's circumstantial, surely."

"Or it's not, and he's related to the Liberation Front somehow."

Midoriya nodded, a sinking sensation in his stomach. It made a disturbing amount of sense, right down to Ingenium's accusations of the Association itself being corrupt.

Kacchan nodded to himself. "I'm going to look into this. See what that creep Monoma's really up to. Assuming you're right about there being an informant."

Midoriya's eyes widened. "You can't!"

"Why not?"

"You'll be in danger," Midoriya hissed. Sir Nighteye had warned him not to involve anyone, but he had thought he could trust Kacchan. "We need to move carefully on this. Please."

"Which one of us is the pro-hero," said Kacchan. "And which one of us is the idiot nerd who didn't work out he had a quirk until he was thirty? Huh?"

Midoriya hung his head, one hand up. There was no convincing Kacchan when he was like this. Never had been. "You've made your point."

Kacchan released air from his lungs in a huff. "I guess you're gonna want a ride back to Todoroki's."

Midoriya blinked, and something in the back of his mind clicked into place. He needed to talk to Sir Nighteye and warn him about Kacchan's course of action, and he needed to do it quickly. "Just drop me back in town. I can make my own way."

To his surprise, Kacchan didn't object, pulling over to let him out once they were back in the city proper. "Don't do anything fucking stupid," Kacchan said, not looking at him. "You can't afford to lose your provisional license."

Midoriya felt his mouth curve into a tired smile. "Thanks."

Midoriya breathed the cool night air, and wondered if Kacchan would ever be his friend again. They'd drifted apart, but they had something in common now, and the last few moments in the car had been not quite friendly, but getting there. He no longer felt like Kacchan was liable to blast his head off at any second.

"Whatever." The Riotmobile's engine roared, leaving Midoriya in the dust.

Dandoran district, where the mutant quirk-users lived, was run-down, mostly small apartment buildings like the one Midoriya lived in, differentiated by the adjustments the denizens had made for their abilities- the archways of front doors taller or wider than a normal human body would need. Some of the windows on ground-floor apartments were blacked out or bricked up, for those whose quirks gave them light sensitivity, and the street had clearly been excavated and repaired dozens of times. A crow-headed newspaper seller stared at him curiously as he passed, and no-one else met his eye as he walked, glancing periodically down at his phone.

He'd known the guy he was going to see for a long time, but they'd never met in person. They were one of the regular posters on the hero forum, the one who'd posted the first sighting of Ingenium. If anyone had the information he needed, it would be them. The forum's biggest hero stalker, Lovejoy.

In normal circumstances, Midoriya was sure he wouldn't have been able to get a meeting with someone like that. But in normal circumstances, his face wasn't plastered across every news outlet in Japan. A single selfie was all it had taken to get Lovejoy's attention.

You're the phoenix guy? You have got to be fucking kidding me.

I want to meet, Midoriya had written, and Lovejoy hadn't needed much convincing. Before he knew it he was standing outside a nondescript first floor flat with newspaper taped to the insides of the windows. He sent another message and heard an answering vibration as the door cracked open an inch and two pale pink eyes stared out at him.

"It's me," he said. He paused. "Allmight#1fan."

"I know who you are," said Lovejoy from behind the door, and Midoriya was struck by her high voice. "Come inside, before someone sees you."

"You're a girl," said Midoriya stupidly, as Lovejoy shut the door behind them.

She was short, the top of her head level with Midoriya's hip, and she looked up at him quizzically. "You were expecting some basement dwelling delinquent type guy?" she asked. "With a scraggly beard and a personal hygiene problem?"

Midoriya practically fell over himself apologising as he removed his shoes. "I mean, you're on the message board, and-"

Lovejoy shook her head, running her fingers through her short magenta hair. "Don't worry about it," she said, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "It doesn't matter anyhow. You want some tea?"

Midoriya looked around the small apartment as Lovejoy made tea. He supposed that for her it wasn't so small, but it was cluttered, clippings from newspapers and magazines covering every available surface. From the other end of the living space was the soft glow of computer monitors and indicators. A living situation he would expect, for the so-called "hero stalker". Lovejoy returned with two cups of tea, in western style crockery. It was good tea, but Midoriya's palate wasn't refined enough to tell more than that.

"So what's this information you wanted?" asked Lovejoy. "That's so important that you came all the way out here in person in the middle of the night?"

Midoriya pursed his lips. He needed the girl's help, but she didn't need to know the whole story. "I need Sir Nighteye's address," he said. "His private residence."

Lovejoy laughed.

"You have it, don't you?"

"That guy hasn't been active in over a decade." Lovejoy pinched her chin. "Are you sure that's all you want?"

"I am."

"And in return?"

"Anything you want. You could take pictures of me-" Midoriya rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed. He had a few savings left, but no idea how long those needed to last him. "I'm kinda famous now."

"I noticed," said Lovejoy, her pale pink eyes intent on him. She was less enthusiastic than he expected, her expression thoughtful. "But I'm not a tabloid reporter, you know."

"Then what do you want?"

"Moderator privileges," said Lovejoy, with a small, innocent smile.

Mirai Sasaki's home was an unassuming house on an unassuming street. Knowing his age, and the length of Sir Nighteye's hero career, Midoriya suspected that the former pro could have afforded something nicer, but a normal appearance had always been the man's motif.

He nearly missed the name sign on Sasaki's front gate, it was so faded. Two dead sunflowers towered over the fence of the small front courtyard, their flowers withered and full of seeds. They seemed sad somehow to Midoriya, but perhaps it was the light. A dim light came from within, perhaps one of the inner rooms of the house. He'd read in a profile once that Sir Nighteye only slept three hours per night.

Midoriya hesitated. What was he thinking, coming here in the middle of the night? But tomorrow would be full of press junkets, and Uraraka would probably assign someone to watching him all the time once she found out what had happened with Ingenium. He didn't have time.

"Sasaki?" he called, hoping his voice wasn't loud enough to rouse the neighbours.

To his relief, there was a reply from inside, Sasaki's voice. "Izuku?"

Mirai Sasaki opened his front door, dressed in dark trousers and a button-up shirt, the top three buttons undone. "What are you doing here?"

"I needed to talk to you," said Midoriya. "About the thing we discussed."

Wordlessly, Sasaki let him in. "You should be more careful," he said, shaking his head. "You could have been followed."

"I wasn't," Midoriya promised as he removed his shoes. "No-one knows I'm here."

Sasaki gave a sigh. "I suppose that will have to do." He gestured to the interior of the house.

The inside of the house looked at first glance to be traditionally Japanese, tatami mats on the floor, until Midoriya looked closely. Blue, red and gold was everywhere.

Sasaki's collection of All Might memorabilia far surpassed his own. First edition, limited edition, steelbox, goldbox. Things that had seen one print run before being recalled, items that Midoriya had seen auction for millions of yen peeked out shyly from inside display cases and built-in cupboards. Midoriya's eyes boggled as he looked around, but he had more important things to talk about than All Might right now.

He sat across the desk from Sasaki in Sasaki's home office, All Might looking down at him from every angle.

"I think I know who the informant is," said Midoriya. "If it's really one of the top ten, like you said."

Sasaki raised an eyebrow. "And you thought this was worth invading my privacy?"

"I didn't have another way of contacting you," said Midoriya. "I needed to warn you."

"Warn me?" said Sasaki, running long fingers over the head of an All Might figurine that stood triumphant next to his inkwell.

It was an old model, one of the first pieces of All Might merchandise ever made. It looked cheap because it had been, the grinning head made of brittle plastic, the eyes and mouth barely painted on. Of the five that still existed in the world, one belonged to the president of the American Heroes association. And it was dusty. Midoriya's eyes widened.

Perhaps Sasaki had been ill, or preoccupied, but no. A true collector would never leave something like this out on a desk where sunlight would fade the paintwork. Let alone let dust accumulate on it. It was sacrilege.

There was only one conclusion. Midoriya's mind went back to his first death, watching Sasaki collect his blood from the memorial plinth. His real neighbour Himiko, tied up in a cupboard.

He's not what he seems.

"It's you," he said, in shock.

Sasaki blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"You're not the real Sir Nighteye," said Midoriya, staring at the figurine, the dust on All Might's golden antenna.

Sasaki moved faster than he thought possible, and Midoriya turned just in time to feel something blunt strike the back of his head.

"A shame," Himiko's voice came to Midoriya as his vision went black. "I hoped we'd have longer than this, Izukuuu."