Down the Rabbit Hole
Past Mistakes
If she is being honest with herself, talking to Yagi didn't relate to talking to All-Might, number one hero six and a half years ago, and Symbol of Peace. For some reason she just can't associate the frail looking man who shakes and coughs up blood with the steadfast man that cowed villains and criminals with a glance.
"Busy patrol?" Yagi asks, easing into his chair slowly.
It's the little things that betray how difficult moving around is for him.
"Somewhat." She replies, giving him a smile that she doesn't quite feel. "Ran into two thugs I think were from the mob. Gave me a name I need to look into later."
"That's good." He picks up the menu, and if either of them notices that his hands shake, they don't comment on it.
They make small talk. What Yagi is ordering, how he's been feeling. She asks how physical therapy is going, and he laughs and says it's much the same, slow improvement if any at all. He orders soup, she orders a sandwich. They both get water. He comments about the weather, she agrees it's getting colder, and that she's not looking forward to it, even if she prefers her winter costume to her summer.
And when their waitress finally sets their food down and walks away, Uraraka is ready to burst with the one topic she's been pointedly ignoring for the duration of their lunch.
"Tell me about Rabbit."
Yagi glowers at her, his sunken eyes considering her for a while. He picks up his spoon, mindlessly dipping it into his soup and then into his mouth. He hums softly at the flavor, or the warmth.
She's not sure.
Honestly, with how much the rest of him suffered under his quirk, she wonders if the man even has taste buds.
"Rabbit was going to be a hero." He finally says, voice heavy as he dips his spoon back into his soup. He swirls it but doesn't take another bite. "Izuku Midoriya, is what he went by then, though if that name has changed, I don't know what to."
"You knew the identity of Rabbit?" She asks, "And didn't tell Eraserhead?"
He shrugs and offer a long-suffering sigh. "When I met young Midoriya, he was a shining light of determination. To think he could become The Rabbit is… off putting, to say the least."
She shifts, taking a small bite of her own sandwich, but it looks like Yagi is lost in his own thoughts. She swallows, takes a sip of water, waiting.
A minute passes, and he takes another bite of soup, gaze distant. So, she nudges him forward with a, "Do you know what caused that change?"
He blinks, the foggy look in his eyes gone as he replies, "Me. I caused it. And it's one of the worst mistakes I've ever made in my life looking back."
She rocks back in her chair at the revelation. Yagi? All Might was the reason Izuku became a villain? "Wh-What did you do?"
He hums, but the expression is sour, "He asked me if a Quirkless boy could become a Hero an…. And…" He hedges, shifting in his seat. "And I told him no. I crushed that dream of his, and I had the opportunity to make it come true for him. But I gave that dream to a boy that already had the ability to become a splendid hero."
She frowns at that, connecting the dots to how All-Might had shepherded Mirio around much of her U.A years. He had been so focused on that class, had been so focused on Mirio's performance.
"You crushed his dreams?" She asks, gaze falling to her plate, but suddenly not hungry.
He nods, then sighs. "And it's my fault that he's in this line of work. He chose the path he's on because of those words. 'You should not… will never… become a hero." He echoes the words, shaking his head. "What sort of man am I to tell those crushing words to a child?"
She stews on the words, finally letting necessity overrule want as she picks up her sandwich. "I think in some ways you were realistic." She finally decides, taking a bite and chewing thoughtfully. It tastes sour, but she's sure that's just the words, not the sandwich. "Quirklessness is a… difficult… thing to struggle with. Especially in today's world, where so many have a quirk, so many have that power. He'd have been subjugated to hate, and discrimination no matter where he went." She trails off, uncertain. "Much less in the hero industry…"
Yagi huffs and shakes his head. "But I could have said anything different. I could have advised him to be a police officer, or a soldier, or a- a…" He lets out another long-suffering sigh before slumping against the table. "I could have given him my Quirk."
There's a pause, and audible shift, as if he realized what he said, but instead of flinching away from it, he just sighs again, leaning back in his chair and pressing one hand against his stomach.
Uraraka hums, filing the line away for later.
They had all suspected. They, being Class 1-A, that All-Might's Quirk had somehow been passed on to Mirio. The boy had gone from just having Permeation, to emitting yellow sparks as he moved, fought, and even, at the end there, black tendrils of something coming out of his hands, like lassos or cabling.
They hadn't asked. Not after the Overhaul fiasco.
Not after all the trial and error and fear it had taken for him to even get Permeation back a year later.
No one had wanted to ask about the other parts of his quirk.
No one wanted to ask why it physically pained All Might to look at Mirio in that hospital bed.
Now is later, and if it involves Rabbit somehow, she wants to know. "You gave Mirio your quirk, the strength, the whips, the energy about it." She sat forward in her chair, "when you could have given Izuku it at the start."
He nods, sunken eyes dropping down to examine the spoon he still held in his hands. He fiddled with it, before reaching up, dropping it into the soup bowl in front of him.
"And now, now Mirio doesn't have it, and I don't, and it's only a miracle we avoided disaster without it." He sighs again.
Disaster.
She hums, "Have you had contact with Izuku since then?"
He hesitates, then nods. "Twice. Once a year after he disappeared. He was in costume then, same rabbit-like outfit, same mask…" He smiles at that, but it looks sad, "he modeled it after me. Did you know that? Sad, he wanted to steal the smile from a hero and make sure people could see it on a villain instead. Since I'd… I'd…" He shakes his head. "He stopped by." He finishes.
"Anything special about it?"
"No. Explained his costume. Told me he wore a grin because he stole it off my face. Told me I was the reason for his choice. And…" He shook his head. "Told me I couldn't make it right. Nothing could."
"And the next time?"
"Couple months after the Overhaul incident. Gave me a flash drive with a smile and a laugh. Told me that even if I betrayed him, he didn't want to kill unnecessary people. That flash drive gave us what we needed for a raid on the League. Told us everything from their numbers to their building lay out." He shakes his head. "Cost us a lot of heroes to contain all that but… I can only imagine what would have happened if we were even a day late."
She remembered that day, had been stationed out in the woods with her classmates and watched in fear as the entire building collapsed, the walls disintegrating. Had been caught in some mix of fear and hope as the building fell apart, as casualty reports came in, as villains trooped out, locked in handcuffs and heroes came out on stretches or carried out-bloody and broken by their comrades.
"He gave you that information?" She asks.
"Said it took a while. Then smiled at me and left. He didn't come in the costume, just knocked on my door and walked in like an old friend."
Uraraka shifted in her seat, unsure how she felt about all of that. On one hand, it meant that Izuku can instituted and helped coordinate one of the biggest villain busts of all time, and stopped Shigaraki- the leader of the League, in his tracks, before whatever bizarre experiment could take place.
On the other hand, it meant he'd sat on that information until he could do anything with it, hording all the pieces instead of filing them properly with the heroes. He'd kept them out of the loop until he needed them, and while he'd given them the information, if he'd given it earlier, it might have saved more lives.
And it meant one more thing.
Three days after Shigaraki's arrest, he disappeared. The only thing recovered, a hand. Freshly detached, and matching Shigaraki's fingerprints, DNA, and skin pigmentation.
No one ever found Shigaraki.
Not the body.
Not any other body part.
Just one hand.
'I've only killed two people. One deserved it. One really deserved it.'
She swallows. Had Izuku killed Shigaraki?
"Ochaco?"
She jerks, blinking back to the present as she looks at Yagi. "You looked a bit scared there. Is something wrong? What were you thinking about?"
"Do… do you think Rabbit is capable of murder?" She asks.
He hesitates, grumbling something before scratching the back of his head. "I suppose." He finally says, "He is a villain, of a sort. And I know he's got connections. I wouldn't say it's his style, but I would put it past him."
She nods, hesitating with the next bit of information. But she relents, because out of all her sensei's, Yagi was special. Special in the way he transitioned from a role model, to a teacher, to a father figure for the entire class. "He said he killed two people. Both deserved it. Do…" She fiddles with her fingers, clasping her hands together to ground herself. "Do you think he could have killed Shigaraki?"
It's silent for a time. Quiet and unsettlingly so, because Yagi's expression is severe, a grimace set so firmly into his face that she's afraid it might stick. And it's so unlike the gleaming smile he'd so often give them that it makes her feel a rush of cold.
"If so, then I'm afraid he might have crossed a line that we can't pull him back from. You can't murder another living being an come out completely fine on the other side. Much less two."
And she can't find it in herself to continue the conversation. Not with that line weighing on her stomach. So, she smiles and nods, and then pointedly shifts the conversation to another topic. On if he'd heard anything from Shoto and Creati, if he'd seen their engagement photos yet(really nice ring, but she's half wondering if Momo made the diamond herself), if he'd heard anything about anyone else in their class (Red Riot went up a rank to #23 this year), and how the new UA class was going (terrible, Aizawa already expelled three kids right out the gate, another two at the first test). And if she's still not feeling quite right when she sees him off, watching him meander down the street, hands shaking as they skate over passing railings and other handholds, then that's her business.
It's her business if she feels sick to her stomach.
It's her business if she wants to know what all Izuku had done.
It's her business if she's worried about him now.
It's her business if she's scared, unsure if he'll be what she wants him to be, or if she's just another pawn in his game of chess.
He's already infiltrated the League of Villains, something the Heroes could only do with Hawks apparently, and only to a minor degree. And he'd gotten everything. Skated in and swiped all their data, all their plans, and crushed them at the heart of their schemes.
How much easier would it be to slide into her agency, woo her like a cheap date, and pull her into some twisted plot?
It's her business if that line of thinking hurts. Hurts so much she can't breathe. Hurts so much that the strangled sob that slides out of her throat makes her flinch. It makes her activate her quirk, steal away her own gravity and launch herself up to the nearest rooftop to hide.
Because she's not sure if Izuku is lying to her. And she's not ready to know if he is yet or not. And she's not ready to acknowledge that if he is, then it would hurt so so much more than just one crummy date with Bakugo, or an awkward romance that fizzed out long before it started with Iida. It would be devastating.
And she's not sure if she's ready for the lie that might be their relationship to sink to the hard truth that it would never work out between a Hero and a sometimes-Villain.