Jpx099 - Yes, this quirk is extremely powerful but also VERY situational. Not to mention the fact that he has to touch someone to lock them onto his quirk - it's easy for his allies (especially if they aren't ambushed by the villains, meaning that he has the time to touch them and hand out buffs), but very not-easy for his enemies. So actually applying his quirk to his enemies is VERY hard. There are also some valid limits - he can't apply the Status Condition to himself, he can only keep several people locked on for 24h (he does more, his quirk lasts for shorter time), only one status condition per person at the same time, etc. etc.
The Archivist of Nyx - Content warnings, yeah, let's just that it's more disturbing than downright horrifying. I think.
DominioSquad7 - Yes to all. Although I'm not saying anything more.
(***)
The morning is long and lazy. Izuku, naturally, doesn't leave the bed until Tsuyu wakes up too. He doesn't want her to open her eyes and not see him there.
Yes. He might be a bit… overprotective. Or perhaps he is just looking forward to morning cuddling. That's an option as well, even if he isn't ready to admit it openly.
But eventually, the day starts properly. He eats his breakfast, notices the majority of the people participating in yesterday's operations are still missing. And probably in their beds. Tsuyu, certainly, doesn't seem interested in leaving his so early. Not while it's still warm and oh so comfy.
Izuku sometimes feels as if Tsuyu was a stereotypical cat girl born in a frog girl body. It's a bit odd, but he doesn't complain. It has its benefits. Besides, it's a free day for her! So lazing around a bit is alright.
Once he finishes his breakfast, he decides to come check on Rabbit. He is awake already, but clearly relishing in having a nice, steady and calm morning.
Izuku does his best not to acknowledge how red his eyes are. He knows well enough what an aftermath of a long crying looks like. Worst of all, Rabbit had no one to hug him, as he had to avoid human contact in order to not accidentally disconnect himself from the captives.
He does look and act marginally less anxious. The excess stress from the battle seemed to have left his body. Izuku has a lengthy talk with him, about himself, his parents and the future.
His dad was never there, having left his mother soon after his birth. And his mother… well, he is having a very serious talk about that during the council meeting. Someone's getting slapped with villain designation very soon.
"I know this is a bit of a… painful question to ask." Izuku says once that segment of the talk is over. "But… Do you still want to be a hero? After all that happened?" Izuku himself isn't sure how well he would fare if his friends were massacred like that.
It might be a bit surprising, but… Rabbit, for all his anxiety and physical weakness, was a clear superhero material. Not someone to actually engage anyone in combat, at least not alone. But with even a single competent combat-oriented sidekick that he could apply his quirk to, he could be an absolute menace. And he could boost five people at once.
Bulletproof was a status condition. So was, apparently, powerful, invincible and invisible, according to what Rabbit told him about his quirk. The strongest buffs - like invincible - tired him out quickly (at the expense of making people virtually resistant to practically everything for a minute or two).
Powerful made you several times stronger. At least physically. But your quirk was temporarily empowered as well. Even the physical matter could be altered to a degree - apparently the Free status condition actually unlocked all restraints that you had on yourself involuntarily.
There were many more status conditions to potentially apply. Quiet, Agile, Flexible, and so on. Fireproof. Warm. Cold. The possibilities were rather extreme, and those were merely buffs. If he actually managed to get his hands on the enemy… wow.
With some good communication equipment granting him the ability to cycle around status conditions from a safe distance - and some self-confidence - Rabbit could be an absolutely terrifying opponent. Even if you excluded his ability to safely incapacitate enemies.
"Y-yes." Rabbit replies. His stutter is born from his social anxiety, not lack of determination. He has a look on his face that Izuku really didn't expect to see there. "K-Kendou and T-Tetsut-Tetsutetsu were my f-riends. If t-they di-died because of O-Ov-Overhaul, then I w-want to h-help stop him. F-for t-for them."
"Calm down." Izuku says quickly. Rabbit is clearly fragmenting in front of him. And the last thing he wants is Rini Akaguro kicking the door in and attacking him for being mean to Rabbit. "I want to stop him as well. And…" He takes a deep breath. "I know what it means to lose someone close to you."
"Y-you do?" Rabbit asks.
"Yeah." Izuku replies. "It has been a long time since then, but… I don't think that the pain ever stops. You just… you just learn to live with it." It took him years. And he wasn't sure how much of that was him getting over it and him getting numb to almost everything that wasn't escapism. "The person responsible will never hurt anyone ever again, but… Carnage and Overhaul are still there. We'll have to work on that."
"Y-yes." Rabbit agrees. He looks down for a moment. "W-we will have to."
(***)
His talk with Reiko Yanagi is shorter. Her backstory isn't even nearly as traumatic. Her family lived in Tokyo. She decided to move back to Shizuoka when her grandmother died and they inherited her house.
Tokyo was, apparently, too loud and active for her. And she wanted to become independent as soon as possible. She moved with her studies here. She was probably going to continue them in the UA.
According to Principal Sasaki's earlier message, the friendly parts of the Tokyo police were already on the move. Her family was going to be moved into the witness protection program (at least that was the official version) today. With the Tokyo SAT and Repulse' hero crew assisting.
(The Naruhata Branch wasn't very well trained in fighting alongside the police, but unlike the Hakamada' SAT, Overhaul couldn't really be prepared for them. They were wildcards. That made them useful.)
They were probably going to get moved to Aldera or Sekoto. Overhaul wasn't going to look for them there, with some false identities and basic protection measures they were going to be safe. It's not like random thugs could recognize them. And they would be close to Reiko.
Izuku was certain that the only people who were going to know where they live were Reiko Yanagi herself and probably Principal Sasaki. Mirai Sasaki was extraordinarily good with security. In fact, Izuku wouldn't be surprised if Mirai managed to find a way to house them at some extended UA facilities in the area.
What happened on the UA stayed on the UA.
Explanations were going to be the biggest hurdle for her to overcome. Her family didn't know that she was a metahuman, or that metahumans even existed. Telling them all of that and explaining how she almost died, and how many friends she lost… Izuku didn't envy her.
Aizawa having to do the same for the families of the dead superheroes was another thing that Izuku didn't envy. Hopefully Overhaul wouldn't target them. But he could, if only to harm those that survived. So even more people that had to be vanished as quickly as possible.
"I hate to ask, but…" He says. "... do you still want to be a hero? I won't blame you for quitting after what happened. No one will." Maybe except for Edge. She was pretty abrasive. A lot, actually. And quitting sounded like something she'd absolutely hate.
"I do." She replies. She seems to be avoiding his gaze. "For Itsuka. But I don't think that I can face a supervillain again. At least… at least not yet."
Defiant really wishes that he would get to meet Itsuka Kendou. She, like him, built her hero team from nothing. She didn't have Alchemist's support, so she didn't expand this quickly. And that's probably what killed her. But…
Her comrades all wanted to continue fighting in her memory, even if some clearly weren't ready to battle villains so quickly. Between this and the way she died… Izuku really regrets never getting to meet her.
"It's alright." Izuku replies. "We have a separate category for Support Heroes. Who don't fight villains, but still help. Disaster relief and so on."
"I think…" She says. She is sitting in a chair in front of him. In her temporary room. She looks… cold. Numb. Another thing that Ryo Inui should take a look into. "... that it would be alright."
"We'll probably open a branch in Sekoto." Izuku says. "It's not a big city, but I prefer not to put all the eggs in one basket. Having some organizational structures there makes sense. We'll probably move all Shizuoka survivors there."
Nothing much happened in Sekoto. But what if the world's eventual response to metahumans would be negative? Having some not-very-active but hidden branches like that would greatly help in storing fleeing metahumans somewhere.
Izuku is at this point almost certain that the government had neither means nor initiative nor the necessary degree of evil to do anything like that. Despite what all the superhero franchises he dabbled into told him. But he couldn't be sure about the outcome of the government's fall. Caution was advised.
According to Principal Sasaki, the most optimistic scenario that he was heading towards (with all his might, including his enthusiastic support towards the superheroes) was the Japanese Government losing most of the control over Japan outside of Tokyo and probably Kyoto. But still existing. And slowly regaining its power, hopefully with the aid of the heroes.
The rest of the country would be divided between former regional governments (more or less listening to the central government, at least when it fit them) and whatever groups would rise to take advantage of chaos.
And then, after a decade or two at worst, reunification. That was the goal. The golden ending.
"Can I go to Aldera instead?" Poltergeist surprises him.
"You… you don't want to stay with the others?" He asks back. He didn't expect that. Not after how enthusiastic they all were (even Reiko, to a degree) when they met again.
"I just…" She pauses and takes a deep breath to calm herself down. Probably. She isn't very expressive. "... seeing them every day would remind me of what happened. I need some time to heal. Besides…" She sighs. "I'd feel out of place. I was closer with Stylist and Weld than the Rabbit's party."
Stylist - Nagamasa Mora. Weld - Yosetsu Awase. Two more heroes of Shizuoka that didn't make it. Two more heroes that Izuku would never get to meet. Two more quirks that he wouldn't get to experiment with.
Both died before Bulwark and Brawler started their last stand. Dabi turned them to ash, together with Mantis in the opening salvo. The one that almost killed Poltergeist, Bulwark and Edge.
"This can be arranged." Izuku agrees. "But… I kind of hoped to make you the branch leader, if you had agreed to that." She felt the most level headed out of them all. Rabbit was too shy, Edge too bloodthirsty, Immortal openly admitted that she kept dying and wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, and Deadshot was… well, a bit too asocial.
"Give that spot to Rabbit." She replies. Izuku blinks at her a few times.
"Are you sure?" He asks. "He is a bit… too anxious."
"He was like that at the beginning." Poltergeist replies. "Brawler and Bulwark helped him a lot, but last night undid all the progress." She sighs lightly. "Tetsutetsu was Kendou's second in command, but Rabbit was the head strategist and tactician. He got Kuroiro's party under his quirk because we crushed them completely before Overhaul arrived. Thanks to his plan. And Rabbit had to put them back on their feet for them to be of any use."
And then he was lucid enough to backstab them by putting them under Unconscious state and fleeing the battle. Rabbit, it seemed, was much smarter than Izuku gave him credit for.
"He'll do fine." Reiko adds. "He just has to find himself again."
(Izuku is only marginally surprised when a few days later Counselor Inui tells him to have a talk with Setsuna Tokage in his stead. Talk about keeping Reiko Yanagi under observation when she is at Aldera Branch. Split isn't very happy about the first person she saved having to be kept under suicide watch, but she obeys.
Reiko didn't attempt it in the end. But the fact that Inui thought that this was an option told Izuku a lot about what she was going through.)
(***)
Uraraka is still avoiding him, clearly. And dodging any serious questions. It's clear that this doesn't make her feel any better about whatever she was going through. Izuku has no idea what is eating from the inside - mostly because she says nothing about it.
He can't even try to help her if she isn't letting him. This hurts. More than he expected. He didn't let Tsuyu and Mei get to his head, right? The kiss that evening didn't change anything either, right? He is concerned about her as a friend, nothing more.
The saddest part is that he is supposed to be a relationship counselor for Mei, despite clearly being in need of advice and help himself. Why are they all so broken? Is that why they seem to be… fitting together so well?
(***)
It's on that very day that Izuku discovers that Dabi might be Amplitude's older brother. Todoroki actually dropped by, looking worse than ever. He just wanted to hang out with Shinsou, after the whole 'almost died in combat' bit. And ended up mentioning this to Hijack and Izuku who was there for some unknown reason.
(he certainly didn't decide to check up on Hijack, feeling a bit guilty over being the one who sent him on the mission that almost ended with his death)
No one else knows, at least within the Takoba Branch. Aldera Branch is kept in the dark as well. But Defiant as the leader should know that. At least in Todoroki's opinion (that Principal Sasaki was clearly sharing). Shinsou was there precisely because he was Todoroki's friend.
Having a close villain relative. With a quirk similar to his. Not to mention a vendetta against their family. It… Well, neither Izuku nor Hitoshi could fully relate. But they could offer their help in stopping Dabi.
"Do you…" Izuku, for the third time that day, decides to ask the hard question. Todoroki doesn't let him finish.
"He has to be stopped." Shoto looks even more emotionless than normally. That alone says a lot. "Even if his quirk made him like this, he still killed dozens if not hundreds of people. If we can't restrain him for the therapy, he'll have to die." He looks down. There is silence around the table. Finally, he speaks again. "I'd prefer to arrest him, but if it's not possible, I should be the one to kill him."
"Todo, you don't…" Shinsou actually manages to speak before Izuku even opens his mind.
"I do." Todoroki interrupts him. He is looking away from them, at the wall. "Touya I knew would never kill those people. If we can't help him, he needs to be stopped. And… all things considered… it's a family matter."
The real question - that Izuku didn't speak aloud - was whether the first gen quirks influenced their users to the same degree. If so, then whether some, like Aizawa, got less destructive impulses in the package… or managed to resist theirs more.
If Dabi truly was Touya Todoroki, then whether he failed to resist the siren call of his quirk… or was it something completely irresistible? And if the former, then did the quirk play into some pre-existing conditions? Was Touya Todoroki, in secret, already a pyromaniac, which led to him developing a fire quirk that pushed his condition to new heights?
They'll probably never know for sure.
Worst of all, if Dabi gets unmasked in front of the cameras after the Reveal Day… how much will he damage the Todorokis? Shoto wouldn't care much about his father getting publicly ruined, but what about his siblings?
(***)
Edge almost explodes when she hears about the idea to put them all in the Sekoto. Even if Rabbit would be there with her. She doesn't want it to be quiet and peaceful. She wants to find Overhaul and Carnage and butcher them in cold blood.
She would make for an extraordinary villain. Or a bloody, antiheroic (at best) vigilante. Rabbit seems to be her Morality Chain. That and, perhaps, the desire to not be like her parents. It was a bit implied through her earlier mentions of them.
What stops her from raging more than she already did is, once again, Rabbit. And the fact that Izuku announced that access to Eclipse's warpgates means that they would be available for any combat deployments.
She storms out. Immortal and Deadshot decide to follow her to make sure that she doesn't do anything stupid.
"I-I'm sorry for her." Rabbit seems to have managed to recover a bit from his earlier self. "S-she d-doesn't mean that."
Rabbit clearly realized what Izuku thought about it. Now that Midoriya was armed with Reiko Yanagi's insight, he began to truly notice the fact that Asa Naoki was smarter than he thought earlier. Much smarter.
"You're sure about it?" Izuku decides to ask. "She is a bit…"
"She… she almost k-killled Carnage." Rabbit replies. "B-before a-all that happened." He adds. "She b…. she… " He takes a deep breath. "She b-blames herself."
That makes sense. It's not exactly… Well, Izuku really isn't a person who should call out others on reacting incorrectly to traumatic events, all things considered (Ryo Inui would probably be overjoyed to hear of that realization).
"What happened?" Izuku asks. Knowing stuff like that is important, if only to know what sort of tactics Goto will expect to be used against him next time. Unfortunately, Shizuoka didn't have even a fraction of their Musutafu' colleagues recording equipment. All that he had were the eyewitnesses.
And most of those were dead, or on the Shie Hasseikai side. It didn't help him in his information gathering.
"T-Tetsu and It-Itsuka held h-him occupied." Rabbit utters. He is really doing his best. Izuku would have hugged him (or sent Tsuyu to do this in his stead) if it wouldn't free the inmates at Tartarus. "R-Rini attacked him f-from the side. Almost c-cut his head off." He looks down. "B-but he sh-shielded his n-neck with muscle… f-fibers from his s-shoulder. S-She would k-kill him under P-powerful. B-but… O-Overhaul's men were t-there. S…She w-wouldn't make it if s-she wasn't under B-Bulletproof."
There is maybe three seconds of silence. Izuku is about to say something when Rabbit speaks again.
"I… I think…" He says. He managed to get himself in control again, at least mostly. "... that she wishes that she was under P-powerful."
(***)
By the time Izuku has to depart for the council meeting, he is already exhausted. It has been a long day. Long and exhausting day that he only made through because of Tsuyu recharging his emotional batteries last night and this morning.
It could only get him so far. And his last few hours were extremely taxing.
The council meeting was a bit larger than he remembered. It was held in a different room, to begin with. Still on UA. Principal Sasaki is there, together with Doctor Shuzenji, Professor Maijima and - an unexpected addition - Counselor Inui. For the law enforcement side there is the Assistant Commissioner Aizawa, Assistant Commissioner Mera, Chief Inspectors Torino, Superintendent Hawks, and Inspector Tsukauchi.
Backdraft isn't present. Dabi's fire in Shizuoka spread so much before being contained that some of the Musutafu fire units were sent north to assist in putting it out. He volunteered to join the excursion.
Everyone seems a bit quieter than Izuku remembers them to be. He, probably, is acting similarly. He isn't a good judge of that.
What Overhaul just did is a good reminder of what might have happened if Defiant didn't manage to introduce the local police in time for it to start preparing for the changing times.
They start by going through what they managed to learn about the battle between the Shizuoka' heroes and villains team-up and Overhaul. Then they go through the battle at the hospital.
There isn't much to say. Blackwing and Split receive a lot of positive words. Shuzenji seems surprisingly unshaken (when asked by someone, she says that it's not the first time that someone threw a grenade at her, which seems to suggest that she didn't stay put during the war).
The only real problem is that Carnage clearly learned the lesson after being killed in Aldera. He was constantly on the move, and once he realized where Deadshot was (seeing Dabi getting headshotted made it easy), he only stayed for more than a second or two in one place when he was certain that there was a building between them.
His partial head armor (achieved through direct control of his shoulder muscle fibers) was another development. Together with his ability to lightly manipulate objects that he showed when he used the flashbangs to weaken Shadow.
Eventually they go through what they know about both the fallen and surviving members of the Shizuoka' heroes. Defiant mentions that Poltergeist will be transferred to Aldera Branch, while the rest will probably become the Sekoto Branch. There seems to be a general acceptance for that idea.
The situation is a bit more complicated when Rabbit becomes the main subject of the talk.
"You're kidding." Aizawa says right after he manages to unfreeze himself. Principal Sasaki looks disgusted more than anything. Those two reactions (shock and disgust) seem to dominate throughout the room.
"I wish so, but no." Izuku replies. "His mother is, technically, a D-Rank villain. And decided to add a completely new level to the concept of abusive parenting." He decides to add.
With a weak first gen quirk that made her able to partially mold the more permanent physical states of others according to her words. Less change A to B and more make sure that A develops to B with some time.
She wanted to have a daughter. She wanted to have a small, cute child. Add her weak quirk (that, at least from some point, she clearly used consciously), and the result is Rabbit having his development stunted.
And not even in any remotely cohesive part. As she was no doctor. Internally, Rabbit insisted, he was eighteen years old. It's the stuff like voice or facial hair (plus suppressed growth in height, he was something about 1,50m tall) that was influenced the most. Mostly because that's what his mother took the most 'interest in'.
Izuku is willing to trust Rabbit on that. He is an anxiety-riled wreck, but Izuku fails to imagine a child managing to act as a strategist and tactician for a hero group for so long. And so successfully. It was his plan that led to Kuroiro's group getting trashed, something Midoriya confirmed beyond reasonable doubt at this point. And then…
…well, if what he heard from Poltergeist and Deadshot was any indication, if not for Rabbit's quick thinking, Tetsutetsu would have died a long time before his last stand. And Poltergeist wouldn't be with them either.
"I don't think that this is even remotely healthy for him in the long-term." Shuzenji announces. In her voice, disgust. "A question to the police. Is she…"
"Absolutely." Aizawa replies. "Hawks, you'll do the honors. I want her jailed and in Tartarus today or tomorrow."
Hawks nods. He is clearly in the disgusted group.
Ryo Inui is clearly going to give Rabbit a lot of personal attention. Hopefully, this includes some anti-anxiety medications. Maybe alongside Chiyo Shuzenji doing whatever she can to help Rabbit grow at least a bit.
Then they start talking about the Abegawa Tenchu Kai captives. Izuku braces himself for it. Because he has an idea. But he is certain that no one will like it very much. Persuading them that it's actually a good idea might take some time.
He can only wonder what the Shie Hasseikai is doing. Probably celebrating their victory in their villain lair. They did crush Abegawa Tenchu Kai and the police of the neighboring prefecture entirely, after all.
(***)
The entire combat force of the Shie Hasseikai is gathered in one of the large, underground halls of Overhaul's villain lair. The praetorians are there. The villains and supervillains are there, except for Inquisitor. Kurono is there as well, though mostly as an assistant.
Overhaul, naturally, is there as well. Standing behind a desk (with some papers on it) in front of them all. He is in That mood. Kurono recognized it immediately. He saw it a few times in the past.
"We're starting the meeting." Kai Chisaki says, looking over the crowd of people in front of him. Some appear to be more or less happy. Some are coldly satisfied. Some, like Dabi and Carnage, appear to be grinning in badly concealed ecstasy. They killed some heroes, after all.
"The subject of the day…" Chisaki smiles. Mustard, who seems to be the best of them all (if you exclude some of the praetorians, already growing white in the background) in situational awareness, suddenly shrinks in his seat. "... is 'How the hell did you manage to fuck absolutely everything up'. We're going to go through it chronologically. We'll discuss punishments afterwards."
Kurono shrinks in his seat. He should have taken a sick leave for the day.
(***)
The next chapter is eight pages of Overhaul yelling at people and two pages of something else, I kid you not.
Also I've begun to publish a new story, Exiting the Stage. It's basically a rather grimdark "What Could Have Been" story to the Ties that Bind. Feel free to check it out if you're into darker fics ;)