In the most secure room at the Nighteye Agency, 5 people sat at the table. While Toshinori had originally asked Mirai to contact Tsukaushi and Gran Torino, the man decided to call Nezu as well. Once informed of the situation, even Gran Torino had come out of the woodwork for the discussion. After all, it wasn't every day that a long since thought dead quirk reappears out of nowhere.
"I think that we should just lock him up right now." The old man had told them grumpily, his legs crossed on the table. "I mean, you just told us that the kid admitted to taking quirks. Talk about blatant illegal quirk use."
"Yes, and only from those already dead or who gave him permission. And are you seriously telling me to get him a technicality of quirk use? You of all people know that children are using their quirk all the time in school without permission."
"We do punish those students."
"Don't pull that with me sensei. You know as well as I do that those students hardly get a slap on the wrist. You want to put him in Tartarus!"
"With that quirk, he should be! Dead or not, he had no right to take those quirks."
"So just because he was born with the quirk, we need to lock him up? What happened to equality? I didn't call you here to discuss what we should do with him. He's an innocent child!"
At this point, Mirai spoke up, "You can't exactly call him innocent. Like Gran Torino said, he did take quirks without permission."
"Technically, what he did could be considered mutilation of a corpse," Tsukauchi chimed in.
"He couldn't help it. It's an urge. He holds himself back from taking every single quirk he can get his hands on. Would you rather he didn't hold himself back and the whole of Musutafu be quirkless right now? He's a good kid."
"I can tell with my quirk that you think that you're telling the truth, but how do you know?"
Toshinori straightened his back, coming into his full height, before he held out his hand to Mirai. "Use your quirk on me and tell me if you see the same future."
He could sense Mirai's apprehension without even looking. The man was reluctant to use his quirk in the first place, but he was especially wary of doing so with All Might. With the possibility of seeing that future again, of himself dead, Toshinori could understand why the man would hesitate.
Nonetheless, Mirai did as asked after a moment's hesitation and looked in his eyes.
And as All Might looked back, he saw the other's eyes widen further and further.
"It's… it's changed."
At this, even Nezu stopped sipping from his tea and sat straighter.
"What do you mean by "it's changed"? I thought Foresight saw the absolute future."
"S-so did I. But I can no longer see his death. At least, not the same death. Your future has changed."
Mirai, who was still partially in shock, refocused his eyes and whirled on him.
"How?" There was a desperation and longing in his voice that Toshinori had never heard before. It made sense, seeing as the man had spent much of the past 5 years searching for some way to avoid what he thought was an inevitable future.
In response he merely lifted his shirt up and showed them the injury that had affected him for the past 5 years. Or rather, what remained of it.
"One of the young man's quirks is called Touch and Go."
Nezu interrupted him there. "Touch and Go you say? I had thought that that quirk had disappeared. If I recall that belonged to a doctor that passed away 6 years ago. In fact, that was one of the people that we had been looking for right after your fight with All for One. It sounded like one of the more promising quirks that could lead to your recovery." Nezu trailed off, sharing a look with Tsukauchi. The detective took that as his cue.
"When searching for him, it was discovered that the doctor died from natural causes. Cancer. The quirk itself allowed the user to heal most of an injury with a simple touch. Of course like most healing quirks, it came with a drawback. It drew upon energy from both the target and user. It was also difficult to pinpoint how much of the injury it healed as percentages for this kind of thing are kind of subjective."
"I'll head to Recovery Girl afterwards to see exactly what was done. But I can already tell you that I find it much easier to breath. And I'm sure you can see how much better it is."
"Be that as it may," Gran Torino interjected, "it doesn't matter what that kid has or hasn't done. The fact remains that there is now someone with All for One roaming free."
"He calls it Give and Take. And that kid has a name, it's Midoriya Izuku."
"I don't care what he calls it, he can take other people's quirks! What if he turns into a supervillain? What if his old minions seek him out? What do we do then?"
"You keep avoiding calling him by his name because you're afraid of the truth! Or maybe you just don't want yourself to see that condemning a child for a choice that wasn't his! Maybe you should care what he calls it! He's not taking all quirks for one person! He's taking them with permission and sometimes being asked to! And he is willing to give them back! Maybe if you acknowledged that, it would let you see that they aren't the same person! "
"And how do you know that Toshinori? Are you willing to bet your life that? Are you willing to bet the world's life on it? Because rest assured, that is exactly what you're doing."
"I am willing to do exactly that. Nothing I have seen from the young man suggests anything of the sort that you are implying might happen. He wants to be a hero. I offered him my own quirk and he refused. He wanted me to know what his quirk was first before I made that kind of decision. What kind of villain would, when I have no idea what his quirk is, willingly refuse that kind of power and disclose his own? He had no idea what my quirk was! But it would have been All Might's quirk, and that would have been enough for most villains!"
Nezu, who had spoken the least in this conversation chose this moment to speak up.
"All Might. You said that you didn't call this meeting to discuss what should be done with him. So why did you call this meeting? This isn't really like you."
Toshinori took a deep breath before opening his eyes to look at each and every one of them. "I want you to know that I will be guiding him. Because he may end up using his quirks, emphasis on multiple, and I didn't want you to panic at the first sight of that."
"Are you insane? Did you forget what All for One did? How he killed Nana?"
"Don't you dare. I know what that man did. You and I were both there when he killed my Master."
At this point. Mirai chimed in, "Then have you forgotten what he did to you?"
"What that man did to me and mine has no consequence on how I will treat young Midoriya. If you're going to bring up my injury from 5 years, then young Midoriya himself has worked to fix that. He has restored much of my fighting capabilities! You're looking for a connection between the two of them when there is none! Just because they have the same quirk—and even the quirk itself differs—that does not mean they are they are the same person."
"Midoriya Izuku. I have an application for him for U.A. Let's see… no criminal record and a record of volunteering at the local hospital-"
"That's where he met all those people he's gotten quirks from."
"I see. His quirk is officially listed as Pyrokinesis. His mother's quirk is a weak form of telekinesis and his father's is fire-breathing… While he lives with his mother, his father works overseas to provide a means of living and moved out soon after son's birth."
Nezu continued typing, bring up any and all information that could be found on the boy, including a clip of the boy from that very same day. For a while, every attendee of that meeting was watching the clips and information play on loop as the principal of U.A. took in all the information.
"Nezu, you're not seriously thinking about letting him attend, are you?" Mirai asked.
Nezu merely tapped his paws on the conference table as he surveyed the information in front of him before he spoke again.
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." He held up a paw to stop whatever Toshinori was going to say. "Whether or not he is sincere in what he says or not, it would be remiss of us to let this quirk out of our sights. It may sound cruel to think of him as an asset, but if turns out to be sincere then all the better for us. But if his intentions turn out to be malicious, then it is even more important to be able to keep our eye on him. For now, I personally approve of Toshinori's actions. And like Toshinori said, the young boy has technically done nothing wrong.
We don't really have any proof of what he has done. In terms of possible mutilation of bodies, he could claim to have a copying quirk and there would be no way to prove otherwise. I'm assuming he volunteers at the hospital to grab quirks quickly?" Nezu directed the question towards Toshinori.
Toshinori nodded in response, "He likened the process to an organ transplant. The less time has passed since the person has passed, the better the chance that the transfer is successful and that the quirk retains all functionality."
Nezu agreed. "At this point, trying to look for any of the Quirk Factor in exhumed corpses to determine whether or not "mutilation" occurred would be meaningless. The Quirk Factor would have long since degraded. The only other thing would be his public usage of a quirk, " Nezu said, referring to the now viral clip of Izuku using pyrokinesis, "but even that would be excused by most of the public as an extenuating circumstance due to his acquaintance with the victim."
Gran Torino and Mirai were obviously not happy with how things were developing. But Mirai, perhaps given the revelations of the latest usage of Midoriya's quirk on Toshinori, seemed less so.
"Fine," the old man said reluctantly. "But, one foot out of line, and I will take my own actions," jetting off of his seat.
"Perhaps we should come back to this discussion when that time comes," Nezu said calmly. "After all, Toshinori had originally deemed the boy worthy to inherit One for All. I propose that for now, we merely keep an eye on both Midoriya-kun and his actions."
Toshinori merely sighed.
"If you're going to issue an ultimatum Gran Torino, then I will issue my own. You may have trained me, but until the boy proves that without a doubt he is a danger, I will do my all to protect him."
With that, Tsukauchi and Gran Torino left. Mirai stayed to ask a question.
"With Midoriya Izuku's refusal, what does that mean for One for All?"
"My friend, I am not sure. Maybe you're right and young Togata is the right choice to inherit my quirk. But I am not quite sure. I will have to meet him to know for sure, and rest assured, I will."
With that, Mirai left, leaving only Nezu with All Might.
"You're taking a risk here Toshinori."
"I know. What can you tell me?" Toshinori may have made this decision on his own, but he would be a fool not to accept Nezu's guidance and insight.
"I think that there are a lot of things that we don't yet know, and what we do know merely poses more questions. Midoriya's officially listed quirk is pyrokinesis. What can you tell me about that?"
"The boy said that he's had that quirk for as long as he can remember."
"…Something's wrong with that picture."
"Yes, Midoriya himself admitted as much. He said that originally, he thought Pyrokinesis was the result of his parents' quirks, Fire Breathing and Helping Hand, mixing. But when he discovered his true quirk, he himself threw the origins of that particular quirk into question."
Nezu quickly—almost too quickly for Toshinori to follow—brought up the files on his parents in the Quirk Registry. "Fire-Breathing, allows for the generation of fire in the stomach to be expelled from the mouth. Helping Hand, a minor telekinesis quirk that allows the user to pull small object to them. His officially listed quirk matches well with what you might expect from a combination quirk of his parents. A little too well. But, I find that you are usually a pretty good judge of character, despite your propensity to not think things through."
"Thank you?"
"Do you think he's genuine?"
"Of course."
"Again, then something doesn't line up. I clearly saw him use that quirk in the news clip, so he's not lying about that. But the fact that it's not his true quirk, but matches so well with his parents' quirks makes me feel that someone orchestrated that. Even with my intelligence, there are too many unknown variables for me. I didn't want to say all of this in front of the others given their closeness to All for One, but we will have to closely monitor Izuku and his use of Give and Take."
"If it helps, he said that he keeps a record of every person he's taken a quirk from, along with the quirk he took, in a notebook."
"I would very much like to see that notebook All Might," Nezu said, clapping his hands in his form of a dismissal.
"I'll do what I can sir," Toshinori said as he turned around to walk away. But before he made it out of the door he was stopped.
"All Might," Nezu called back after him. The man in question turned with an inquiring eye. "Have you given more thought to my proposal?"
Izuku really didn't know what he was doing here. It was 7 AM and he was waiting with his phone in hand at a… well it was questionable whether one could even call this a beach. All Might had contacted him (how the hell did he even get his number?).
Izuku could sense the presence before anything else and called out behind him.
"You wanted to see me All Might?" Currently, the man in question was in his emaciated form. While the healing that Izuku had done to him had improved his condition, it seems he saw no reason to put on airs with someone who already knew his secret.
"Yes. I wanted to continue to speak to you young Midoriya. If you allowed, I wanted to tell you a little bit more about my quirk and at the same time had some questions of my own."
"I am fine with that," Izuku said, "But how did you get my number?"
"Ah, about that. I didn't know how to get into contact with you, so I had called in a favor. I had a feeling that you were going to apply to U.A. so I called Nezu. And on that matter, because your quirk is so potentially powerful, I was wondering if you would be okay with me disclosing the nature of your quirk with certain select individuals, such as the principal."
"…I'm not sure whether to be flattered or creeped out. Maybe both? But in regards to you telling people, if you trust them All Might, then I trust you. I just want you to exercise extreme discretion. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how dangerous this information could be."
Izuku let nothing show on his face. He's had to lie for years and years, and knew that the man in front of him had already spoken to those people. Denying him now would only sow distrust; it also didn't hurt that Izuku meant what he said. He would just have to prepare to flee the city and possibly the country if this all went south.
"Thank you for your trust young Midoriya. First off, what are some other quirks that you have in your possession?"
"I have a couple of strength and speed enhancers, as well as an IQ boosting one. I have Hawkeye and Bullseye, which is a fun combination, and super-hearing which is how I could tell your heart was beating more quickly yesterday. The only other one of note is a danger sensing one which I call Spidey Sense, like the comics. Air Compression, Directional Shield, a phone charging one and a couple of others that are really not of much importance."
"I see."
"And what about your quirk? I remember that even before you knew what my quirk was, you said that you wanted to give me your quirk?" Izuku asked.
"Ah yes. So, my quirk-"
"One for All, you told me that much."
"Ah, yes. *Ahem* So, I'll just cut straight to the chase. I am actually the eighth holder of One for All."
Izuku just stopped dead. "E-Eighth? How is that possible? You would have to be like me in order to keep passing a quirk along."
"Not true young Midoriya. You see, my quirk is one that can be passed down from one person to the next, like a sacred flame. One person cultivates the power of the quirk and then when they're ready, they pass it on."
"What do you mean by cultivate?"
"Well, One for All also stockpiles power. So the quirk gains power as it goes on."
"And quirks?"
"And—and what?"
"Well, that's what it looks like. Give and Take lets me see manifestations of people's quirks. It's how I can identify them and pick out which ones I want."
"What do you mean pick out?" All Might asked the boy.
"Well, my quirk Give and Take. It obviously has two parts, giving quirks and taking quirks. The first time I can remember taking a quirk, I had no body contact with the person in question."
'No, body contact?'
"I had pulled in the quirk. I tried to give it back, and didn't have luck for quite a while. It was only when I was trying to give it back and he happened to touch me that it returned to him. Luckily since that person had just newly manifested the quirk, the incident was able to be passed off as a difficulty in understanding how to activate it. So, I can take quirks from a distance but need direct contact to give them. But, even with taking quirks, contact makes it go more quickly."
"I see."
"But that's a little bit off topic. While your quirk One for All is a single "mass" of quirk, I see 6 distinct shapes inside of it. They give off the same feeling like quirks so… It's so difficult to describe, because I'm trying to describe something I'm feeling with my quirk. I can "see" quirks, but also feel them. It's almost like sonar or radar, where I feel the feedback from quirks. If I really wanted to, I could close my eyes and walk just with my quirk. The feeling I get from your quirk, it's almost like there are six separate, yet intertwined quirks."
"Are you telling me that One for All, stockpiles it's users' quirks?"
"Maybe? I really don't know, but that's what it feels like. It's strange. It's like, for most people the quirk is like a ball of light. I can identify people by their quirks in this way because I can sense them. But your quirk is different from anyone else's I've seen. Most people's quirks are a singular "color" or "feeling". The only exceptions to that are mutations, since they often manifest familial heteromorphic mutations.
But on the other hand, your quirk has its own boundaries. But it's so strange. It like, a quirk is enclosing another 6 quirks. And those quirks have meshed together so well that it's hard to differentiate them, but the differences exist. It like dropping food coloring into milk and leaving it for a while. While there would definitely be areas of certain colors, the boundaries of each color would be much more amorphous and less defined."
"Disregarding the fact that you just used food coloring and milk as a metaphors for my quirk, are you telling me that I could use the other users' quirks? That I—I could use my master's quirk?"
All Might had choked up at the end. Izuku didn't think it was his business, but it might become his business based on how the conversation went.
"I honestly don't know All Might. I think that if you could, you would have discovered how by now. After all, haven't you ever used One for All with your own quirk?"
"Er, well, that is to say-"
"You were quirkless," Izuku said in disbelief.
"Now young ma-"
"I know, I can't tell anybody. Don't worry, my lips are sealed, especially given my own circumstances."
All Might just nodded, internally thinking about how quickly this teenager was able to pick up on cues.
"It's not that I feel any worse about you. It's just such a shock. I just never imagined someone that could be in a similar situation as me and the others. I never imagined someone else being able to give quirks."
"Others?" All Might asked while trying to hide a flinch.
"Oh, I meant the quirkless."
"How does that have to do with me?" All Might asked curiously.
"Well, they were given quirks too?"
"…By you?"
"...Yes? I recorded them in this notebook. I have a strange quirk I use for this. I call it Trail of Tears. Maybe a little inappropriate, but it allows me to help people. I use it at quirk doctors' offices to track down people who are quirkless and I… rectify the situation. Hopefully before too much time passes and it can be chalked up to a mistake."
"That…. Is very noble of you to do young Midoriya. How many of those cases are there?"
"Maybe around… 20?" Izuku had to dig around in his head to look around. "21."
"When you told you me how many quirks you had taken, did it include of exclude that number?"
"It included it."
"That means you actually only have 42 quirks? What types of quirks?"
"Yea. Whenever I give people quirks, I tend to give emitters or transformation quirks. It is very rare that I take Mutant quirks, and even rarer that I give them. In particular, Heteromorphic Mutant—that is, form-changing—quirks don't typically fit my style and I only take them when the person in question requests it of me. Even then, I usually try to find someone who would be willing to take such a quirk. Those people don't want them for a reason, so I can't just shunt it off on some other random person. But I can't also just suddenly develop a heteromorphic quirk. Then, because most mutant quirks are present from birth, I tend to avoid giving them besides those cases. It raises too many red flags if everyone isn't careful."
"I see. Well, the only thing I have left to ask is if I could borrow your notebook? I want to talk to Principal Nezu about the situation given his own quirk, and so that way you will be able to use your quirk during the entrance exam and school."
"Well, because my legally listed quirk is pyrokinesis, I had just been planning on using that."
"That is all fine and good. But on the off chance that you do need to use it, it would be good to have him in the know. Now, do you have any questions for me?"
"So based on what you've told me, someone didn't give you this quirk like I give other people quirks. So your quirk only has one user?"
"Yes. Like I was telling you, this quirk stockpiles power, and apparently quirks, from user to user. It is usually cultivated by one user, then passed on to the next. I am the eighth user of the quirk and I had originally hoped to make you the ninth."
"I appreciate the thought All Might, but I think that your quirk would be better suited to someone else. I already have more power than I know what to do with."
"That is very big decision young Midoriya. Are you sure?"
Izuku nodded. "I am."
All Might nodded back and there was a calm silence between the two of them. They sat on the beach watching the sun rise.
"Do you have a plan to get into U.A.?"
"Well, I have been doing basic workouts in addition to training my quirks. Because I had been planning on just using my registered quirk, I had been focusing on my control with that."
"Well, it's a good thing that you know that a hero trains both their quirk and their body. However, I have a proposition for you."
"Yes?"
"Do you want to clean up this beach?"
Toshinori felt a little bit bad about lying to young Midoriya about already having disclosed his quirk to other parties. In his panic yesterday, he had just blurted out what he knew. But, he hoped to make it up to the young man by protecting him and guiding him.
"Clean up this whole beach?"
No matter how powerful the young man in front of him was, even he could hardly see a way to do that.
"I want you to clean it up quirkless."
"All Might-"
"Please, call me Yagi. That's my real name, Yagi Toshinori."
"Yagi-san, how quickly do you want me to do that? This beach is a dumping ground for both the natural currents and even normally conscientious people."
"I wanted to say before the U.A. entrance exam. That gives us 10 months. I think that it's possible. I believe in you."
Toshinori could see the change in him. He wasn't sure exactly what it was that he said, but he could see the fire in the young man's eyes. His posture, which Toshinori hadn't even realized was slightly slouched, straightened.
"Well, it looks like we'll have a beach again within 10 months."
Quirk Entry 2: HI-Q
HI-Q grants the user an almost superhuman IQ. While it doesn't grant the same advantages or abilities as High Spec (Nezu), it still gives the user an IQ somewhere in the range of 160-180, which could still be considered genius level. While IQ is not the end all be all measurement of intelligence, it is indicative of a certain range. As such, HI-Q allows the user to gain a much higher understanding, comprehension, and connection of events and variables. Main ways to bypass this intelligence is to introduce elements that have too many variables that can affect the outcome.
