A/n: Chapter 11 has been fixed! Thank you for letting me know! If it's still showing up borked, try clearing your cookies.
It happened that one week after Dabi joined the League of Villains (Izuku was against the name, suspecting it was just a rip off of League of Legends, which Tomura played obsessively), Izuku made his first, more or less, deliberate kill. How it happened was startling but he couldn't bring himself to feel bad about it. It did make him realize he should probably train with, and carry, a weapon if such incidents were going to be common.
The teen had been hanging out on a rooftop trying to get a better view of a fight. The immediate area had been evacuated but it was one of the heroes he was analyzing against an interesting new villain. Notebook out and sitting on the edge, someone had called out behind him. The sudden, loud, noise nearly made him fall.
"What do you think you're doing, kid? You shouldn't be up here!" The hero was dressed in a garrish orange and red checkered suit that made him look like a clown. The greenette didn't recognize him.
Irritation replaced Izuku's instinctive fear. As he climbed to his feet the man stalked forward. The action made the teen roll his eyes, something he picked up from Tomura. "If I was suicidal right now you probably would have killed me."
The hero looked confused before shaking his head with a scowl. "If you were suicidal you wouldn't be sassing me. Everyone was told to leave the area. Do you know how many stairs I had to climb to get up here?"
Izuku's eyebrow lifted sardonically, at this point deliberately baiting him. "Do you see wings? I had to get up here somehow, too."
An angry scowl lit the man's face and he lunged forward to grab Izuku's arm. The greenette pivoted on his heel, ducking to lower his center of gravity he seized the hero's wrist and yanked, sending him sailing over Izuku's shoulder - and off the building. Apparently the man wasn't lying about not having a flying quirk. He turned to watch the free fall's progress, which ended abruptly in a splatter of gore as flesh and bone met concrete.
Letting out a huff, the teen reluctantly opted to make himself scarce. He was annoyed at missing the fight but inevitably someone was recording it. There was no telling how long it would be before the body was found. It would be best if he was home before that happened. Reclaiming his notebook and pen from the ground, he pulled out a phone - Tomura finally decided he needed one - to text Kurogiri for a portal.
Stepping through the gate, he looked around the living room to see Tomura and Dabi playing a fighting game on the couch. That was becoming an increasingly common sight. Seeing them sent tingles up his spine. And when they both stared with curiosity at his rumpled appearance he blushed and felt warm.
Covering up the awkward reaction, Izuku fidgeted and rubbed the back of his neck. "Um… I kind of… killed a hero." He peeked at them through his bangs sheepishly. "It was an accident - well, I meant to, but he came at me and I got angry so… yeah."
The nervous rambling tapered off at their incredulous expressions. Kurogiri broke the silence. "Which hero was it? And did anyone see you?" The shadowy man looked him over before striding into the kitchen to make him tea. That was the man's default when he thought Izuku was upset.
"I'm not sure. He had on a checkered red and orange suit. He was aggressive with wanting me to leave the area." A dark frown crossed his lips. "I brought up the fact that I could have been a jumper and he didn't care. So I threw him off the roof. We were high up and it was in an evacuation zone, so I don't think anyone saw me." He accepted the tea when Kurogiri offered and shuffled over to sit in a chair. Examining his own feelings about the incident, he felt fine. Satisfied, even. That hero was exactly the type he hated.
The scarred man hummed thoughtfully. "That sounds like Ignition. He was an asshole, so good job." Dabi gave a lopsided grin of approval. Izuku's stomach twisted pleasantly. Tomura also offered a slight smile and a nod. The twist turned into butterflies.
Standing abruptly and almost spilling his tea, Izuku fussed with the cup. "I should go keep an eye on the news feeds, just in case. And since he made me miss the fight I need to find a video of it..." There was an uneasy - for him - pause before he padded quickly down the hall and into his room.
Throwing himself face down on the bed, he let out a dismayed groan into his pillow. Why did teenage hormones have to be so humiliating? And confusing. He thought Tomura and Dabi were attractive. He liked both of them. But weren't people only supposed to like one person at a time? To say nothing of the fact that neither man would ever return the feelings. And he remembered hearing somewhere that teens were fickle. What if he confessed and the feelings passed? He'd never live it down and it would ruin perfectly good friendships.
Mental gymnastics out of the way, he sat up and pulled his computer into his lap. Typing rapidly, eventually he found a video of the fight. It wasn't the best since it was shot from a distant window but enough was there to give him an idea of what happened.
The villain appeared to be a buff woman in sunglasses, carrying what looked like a battering ram? The hero was Figaro, the Barber Hero. Wielding scissors that he used to cut his own hair, the strands lanced out like needles towards the villain. The villain did something with the object and Figaro flew towards her, head meeting a ready fist. The man went down and the villain used the ram to bash in his skull.
Whoever was filming let out a horrified gasp and dropped their phone. The feed ended. Izuku sat back with a thoughtful frown.
Some type of telekinesis? But the object wouldn't make sense in that case. Most telekinetic quirks were mental, not emitter types. It looked shiny, so it was metal. Metal manipulation? But nothing seemed to physically happen. Magnetism? That seemed most likely. What a useful ability!
He wished he could have seen where she'd gone. There were so many questions he wanted to ask about her quirk. Plus, seeing if she was open to recruitment. Pulling his notebook over, he made a rough sketch of the woman. The others could help keep an eye out.
Ever since Sensei gave Tomura the All-Might assignment, the pale man had been going out every night to look for criminals and villains to join them. The problem was he was just gathering every random thug he found. Having henchmen wasn't a bad thing but too many became a chore to coordinate. That and if there was no personal loyalty they'd bail out at the first sign of trouble. And if they got arrested they'd talk to save themselves.
Izuku also had plenty of issues with Sensei's plan to target All-Might at the school. It was the top hero academy in Japan, employing only the best teachers. Most of said teachers were underground heroes, which meant finding information on them was difficult. To say nothing of the students themselves. They could pose just as much threat - they were wanting to be heroes after all.
Days of research had only yielded shaky night time clips of Eraserhead. His fighting style fascinated the greenette since it relied on trained agility and strength rather than a quirk. He'd studied every video of the man he could find and was eager to train in a similar style. He even had designs on a specific weapon that he fell in love with after watching HeroTube channels of people training with various tools.
The weapon in question was called a kusarigama. It consisted of a long chain with a weighted ball on one end and a sickle-like blade on the other. It provided both midrange defense and melee stopping power. Perfect for a smaller than average quirkless kid who wanted to avoid getting physically overpowered by a foe. The two main issues were it needed open space to practice with and he needed to do so without accidentally killing himself.
Kusarigamajutsu was a focus of several legitimate martial arts. If he looked hard enough he could probably find a trainer who could get him into shape and teach him. Money was the main inhibitor. A secondary factor was time. A proper teacher would require him to start at the basics and work his way up, which could take years. Hence wanting to learn on his own.
The wandering thoughts eventually prompted him to return to the living room. Kurogiri was beginning lunch and the other two were still gaming on the couch. Entering the kitchen, he began helping the shadowy man prepare the food. "Kurogiri? Is there a warehouse I could use for training?"
A thoughtful hum escaped the man. After a few minutes he nodded. "Weapons, I assume? There is one not far from here that may be suitable. Do you need me to procure you anything?"
"A wooden practice kusarigama and some type of targets?" It came out hesitantly. He still felt uncomfortable asking for things for himself.
Glowing eyes crinkled at him in a smile. "Consider it done. I'll let you know when it's set up."