Jack Redhawke - This chapter should clear all uncertainties about that.

Jpx0999 - You'll find out... in literally this chapter.

Matt - Yeah, tbh, Inko knew too much :V

Shahryar - Not a lot of it, but... it should be enough :P

Miqila - He was pretty harsh, but one thing has to be said - he is equally harsh on himself. If not more.

Guest - Oof.

(***)

Uraraka Ochaco ended up visiting the corridor where Izuku's room was located that night. Just to see Tsuyu still circling around his door, while ribbiting loudly in a way that made Ochaco's heart bleed.

Mei was sitting on the ground by the wall, staring at a screen of her laptop with quiet determination.

Uraraka barely had the time to get closer and open her mouth before Tsuyu leaped at her and hugged her closely.

"He…" She's struggling to find the right words. There are still some tears on her face, but… she seems like she mostly ran out of those. "... he said that I wouldn't be alone anymore, ribbit."

Right. Stab Uraraka in the heart some more. Why not?

There is an invisible wall between her and the door to Izuku's room. She's trying to walk there, but… she just can't make the first step.

He told her that he believed in her. That he knew that what she did certainly wasn't an unforgivable crime, despite not knowing the truth. So why, when it mattered, Uraraka was too terrified to move?

Why

"Forgive him, Tsu." Uraraka says, while hugging the frog girl back. "He… he lost someone that to him was what he is to you. He isn't thinking clearly right now, and… he has to find himself."

"He's in pain, ribbit." Tsuyu hugs her even closer. She is… strong, surprisingly strong. Then again, all that swimming for years… "I want to help him, like he helped me, ribbit. But he doesn't let me."

They stay in that position for a few minutes. Uraraka needed it. Tsuyu needed it a lot. They are close, pretty much best friends. Uraraka Ochaco has no idea if it started because Tsuyu with her unexplainable empathy managed to figure out what her problems were about and decided to help her, but…

She helped.

A lot.

Despite them not speaking a word about what was troubling Ochako the whole time.

But eventually, Uraraka had to snap back to reality.

"Mei?" She asks. Hatsume lets out a non-comitant grunt while still staring at her laptop's screen. "Are you…"

"I have to keep watch of him until morning." Mei replies. "Until Jirou wakes up. That takes precedence over everything. So I'm happy that you're here to take care of our favorite frog, because I'm terrified of what might happen if I let Izuku off my sight for even a second."

"He's strong." Uraraka replies, desperately wishing that she could say that she believes in her own words. "It might take him a while, but… he'll recover."

"I hope you're right." Mei looks down for a moment before snapping back to staring at her laptop. "I… I don't know what to do, Ochako. I just… don't. I'm not good with feelings, I never was, other people… just never really interested me before I met Izuku, and… even if he let me in, I have no idea what to say."

Uraraka opens her mouth, but… she has no idea what to say right now either.

She was a coward. She was a dirty coward that was afraid of speaking the truth in fear of… what, rejection? Did it even matter when the alternative was Izuku…

He saved her, but she was too afraid to do the same for him. How pathetic was that? What face would Kirishima do if he knew what she was hesitating to do? His words earlier were still on her mind.

"I… don't want to lose him, either." Uraraka says. And, immediately, she feels like a traitor. Like even more of a joke of a 'hero'. "I…"

"... I'm pregnant." Mei says quietly. Uraraka isn't sure if she even heard her interjection. "I planned to tell him after the raid, it's starting to be visible and I'm almost angry at him for not noticing, but… what if I make things worse? I don't know what to…"

No. NO.

Mei Hatsume is interrupted by a loud slap. Uraraka just slapped herself in both of her cheeks at once (with plenty of strength behind it), startling both the zaibatsu heiress and the frog girl.

"I…" Uraraka announces. "... am going in. I think that I know what to tell him, so I'm going to do it in your name too."

She has no idea why Ryo Inui said that it could help him. But she's going to trust him.

"B-but, his room is closed and…" Mei tries to reply, but Uraraka pulls something out of her pocket.

"Let me introduce to you, our lord and savior…" Uraraka announces. "... the lockpick. And yes, I know how to use it. And I'm going to use it. Go downstairs for a few minutes and give us a moment to talk."

Tsuyu ribbited her refusal to go, but Mei grabbed her and then carried her downstairs as if she was a humansized plushie. It was, honestly, kind of adorable, especially with Tsuyu wearing her froggy onesie.

Not the time for this, Uraraka.

She focuses on picking the lock open.

(***)

Izuku wasn't in his right mind.

Too many blows in too short of a succession. Izuku's mind was a house of cards tumbling down.

Did he even mentally leave his old house and the confrontation he had with Bakugou Katsuki?

"You took everything from me!" The demon haunting Izuku for years shouts. "My achievements, my future, even my parents! I've spent more than a year in what was practically a prison, then I was sent to that fucking facility simply because you refused to learn your fucking place!"

They were standing in front of each other in the living room. It's small, like most of the Midoriya's household. It was also cozy.

It no longer is. The whole room is a mess. There was a fight in it earlier, and Bakugou was clearly one of the main combatants. His nose is broken, his forehead is nastily slashed, and he seems to be slightly limping.

The man that Izuku recognized as Hari Kurono, Overhaul's second in command, is staring at them quietly from the doorway behind Bakugou. He is going to run away and escape through the window in another room the second the fight would start.

Could it even be referred to as a fight?

Izuku trembled internally. It was Bakugou. Midoriya himself couldn't say if he was trembling with fear or anger.

"Where…" He says. "... is my mother?"

"Where do you think she is, Deku?" Bakugou glares at him. "I haven't done shit to your sister, but you used her suicide to turn my family against me…

"You bullied her!" Izuku shouts. "You drove her to this, you…"

"I DIDN'T DO SHIT!" Bakugou yells back. "She was just fucking weak, I acted the same way in front of everyone, even the extras that were hanging around me and not a single one had an issue with that! Teachers had no issue with that! Then she killed herself, for no fucking reason and ruined my life! You used my family to hurt me, so hey, I returned the fucking favour."

"You…" Izuku stares at him with a dawning horror in his heart. "You didn't…"

"I did." Bakugou looks proud of that. "Auntie Inko joined your sister. Once I'm done with you, I'll come visit my parents, see how they are doing now that they stabbed me in the ba…"

He stops talking, greenish energy arcs erupting from Izuku's body. Bakugou is slammed into the nearest wall. The wall, not particularly tough, gives in before he does.

Bakugou yells, trying to point his hands at Izuku. He had a quirk, Kurono wouldn't bother escorting him here otherwise, and it's probably something with his hands. So Izuku breaks them.

The wrong moment, for Bakugou. He used his meta-ability in shock, some sort of explosion producing quirk that he fired from his palms. Unfortunately, with his bones broken, the recoil practically tore his arms off.

How didn't he faint out of pain and shock? Did it really matter?

His explosions didn't even hit Izuku. But the damage to the walls was there and it was going to start a fire very, very soon. In the meantime, Defiant didn't care.

His Ignition sense helped him feel the whole building. He could feel his mother's body lying in another room. He could feel her chest not moving.

He slammed Bakugou into a wall. Then into the floor. Then into the ceiling. Then into another wall. Bakugou Katsuki stops screaming, but Izuku can barely hear it.

Ceiling. Wall. Wall. Wall. Floor. Ceiling. Wall. Wall. Floor. Ceiling. Wall. Ceiling. Floor. Wall. Wall.

With every impact, there is less and less of Bakugou for his quirk to throw around. Despite him finally losing it (it was long overdue), despite Izuku screaming until his throat gave in, he doesn't quite reach the power level he showed a subjective lifetime ago in that alleyway when he slammed Overhaul into the wall.

Is he subconsciously limiting himself?

But it was enough. Deadly degree of blunt force trauma. It just took him a few more hits for Bakugou's body to start breaking.

Eventually, he stops. He has no idea why. What's left of Bakugou's corpse falls to the ground.

It has to be a dream, right? Just a bad dream. He probably fell asleep in the hospital, waiting for Yaoyorozu's surgery to conclude and… got a nightmare out of it. Right? Right?

Wait. Even if it's not a dream, his mother couldn't have died, right? Right! She was probably just playing dead. She was supposedly a member of some ancient conspiracy, there is just no way that she had no tricks up her sleeve.

So he walks through a mess that was his living room, and…

"Izuku!"

He blinks a few times. It's not his mother, that's Uraraka, why was she…

"Why… why are you…" Then he realizes.

Oh. He was in his room, sitting on the floor right next to his bed, hugging his knees and staring blankly in space. He wasn't even crying, he just… felt numb, empty, like a part of him just died.

It all happened, didn't it? It wasn't just a bad dream.

He should have started to cry again, but… he just didn't, he couldn't. Why couldn't he?! Why couldn't he…

"Can I sit right next to you?" Uraraka asks. "You… you remember telling me that you were ready to wait for as long as I wanted you to before… hearing what happened to me in the past? I think that the time finally came."

Part of Izuku wants to tell her to get lost. He had enough tragedies of his own to worry himself with those of others. But something on her face tells him to listen to her. And something in him tells him to not refuse her, since he promised her something and… he doesn't want to fail anyone anymore.

he already failed everyone didn't he

Uraraka doesn't wait for him to reply and sits there, mimicking his position on the floor, her back on the wall.

"There… was a family." Uraraka says, her words strained. "It was… happy. A husband, a wife, and a single daughter. The parents had a construction company, and they were doing pretty well. Their daughter always wanted to inherit their business when she grew up, so she was doing her best in school."

It's… Izuku really doesn't think that the look on her face fits the words she's speaking.

"Then the war started." Uraraka's voice somehow gets more bitter. "Their town was occupied. They were doing their best to survive. It's not like they had a lot of choice when the Chinese soldiers garrisoning their town told them to hand over their supplies and workforce to help rebuild the former JGSDF base that they were now stationed in."

She is… collapsing in front of him. Not literally, but… it's like seeing her being undone bit by bit with every word that's coming out of her mouth. It's little more than just the look on her face to go by, but…

"Unfortunately, it didn't matter at all to… them." Uraraka continues, her eyes staring blankly in space. "There were some leftover JGSDF soldiers in the area, half of them closer to being deserters who realized that the People's Liberation Army didn't really like them at all and would probably put them all in an internment camp at best. But for as long as they presented themselves as guerillas, they could act as pretty much bandits and still get some supply drops from what was left of the JGSDF and the government. And one night… they visited a certain family of 'collaborators'."

Oh no.

Izuku can imagine what's going to happen now. And… he has a lot of time to imagine various scenarios - none of them pleasant - because Uraraka stays quiet for a long time, clearly trying to patch herself up enough to speak again.

"And they killed the parents." Uraraka eventually says, her arms gripping her knees as if her life depended on it. "The daughter had much less luck. They took her with them… because their leader apparently liked girls her age."

Izuku stares at her in silent horror. He wants to say something, but he doesn't know what. Worst of all, some part of him feels that if he interrupts it now… she wouldn't manage to talk about it again. She was…

He finally realized how correct Tsuyu was when she said that Uraraka, deep inside, was hurt more than Mina.

"Eventually… the daughter got her quirk." Uraraka manages to steel herself back into continuing her tale. "And tried to escape. She planned to levitate a few potentially explosive or flammable things and then drop them at once to make a distraction. Unfortunately, she didn't realize just how bad the discipline in the camp got in the meantime and how lousy people got with basic things, like handling flammable materials in the camp. She… she didn't expect a chain explosion that blew up half of the camp, with the Chinese noticing the commotion and sweeping through what was left in the aftermath."

How many? It probably wasn't a massive camp, the People's Liberation Army would have noticed a bunch of soldiers camping in the forest regardless of security means applied. Dozens? Up to a hundred, but…

"The daughter escaped." Uraraka continues. "And… when the war started, her father started teaching her about survival just in case. She also knew where he hid a gun or two, just in case. So she picked it up, and… started to wander around the country, until she finally hid in some abandoned house in the woods."

Silence. Izuku is still trying to figure out his own opinion on what he just heard, until… until Uraraka speaks again.

"She didn't really have anything to live for." Uraraka continues, something in her face being downright haunting. "And she only had so many bullets to help her hunt, as foraging turned out harder than she thought. So, she figured out that she could as well wait until she only had a single bullet left and…"

She doesn't finish the sentence, but Izuku knows what she meant by it. He knows and… it reminds him of someone. Someone he lost in the past. Painfully so.

"But then a boy left a message on her door during the night." Uraraka says. There is … a smile on her face now. A faint one, and accompanied by the first of many tears (he wasn't the only one who had a dam behind his eyes, and hers was clearly breaking) to come, but… "He wrote some pretty ridiculous things, but… the daughter decided that it might have been a sign, to… postpone her decision. So she decided to try her best to act like she used to before… it all happened."

The grip on her legs grows weaker for a moment and she finally turns her head towards him.

"And it worked well for a moment." Uraraka says. "She genuinely thought that she managed to put it all behind her. And then, she realized that she was in love with that boy. The boy that actually made her feel like she wanted to try again. Except, he was taken already. And when she decided to act dumb despite that, and kissed him the night he had a certain little girl heal her from her injuries… she realized that she didn't manage to put anything behind her."

The way she was avoiding him after that, did she…

"It turned out that she was as injured as she was before, and her 'fake it till you make it' didn't work." Uraraka continues, the tears intensifying and her voice growing more and more bitter. "And that she was so broken that she couldn't even kiss the boy that she loved so much without remembering…" The words fail to leave her mouth. "So she kept trying to do her best, to at least not fail the people that put her trust in her, despite knowing that she was a fraud and a villain all along, but, but…"

"You aren't a fraud, Ochako." Finally, finally Izuku manages to say something. "And you aren't a villain."

Part of him wants to hug her, but… what if she…

"I lied to you!" She replies loudly. "I lied to you all for weeks and…"

"And it took me months to admit that I was doing the 'fake it till you make it' after Bakugou…" Izuku replies, his voice failing him after the surname. "I told you that I believe that I saw the real you when you were celebrating the successful rescue of someone… and I stand by it. I also told you that I believe that whatever murder you commited was probably not your fault, and… I stand by it."

"Izuku, that was…"

"That was an escape attempt." He cuts in. "You didn't plan to kill them, it was an accident. You can still be a hero, Uraraka. You can still save people."

"I'm a mess, Izuku." She looks back at him, it's… she wants to believe him, but… "I can't even hug, much less kiss a boy because it just all comes back to me, and…"

"... and that's what therapy is for, Ochako." Izuku cuts in, his eyes looking at her with an expression of sadness almost to match hers. "And I can wait."

She stares at him for a few seconds, as if trying to process the implications of what he just said.

"You… you mean that…"

"It was just us four at the beginning." Izuku says. There is a smile on his face, although one as faint as the one Uraraka displayed briefly earlier. "Before Kirishima and Mina joined, but… that was our first operation as an actual organization. You, Tsuyu and Mei, you all made the Network possible. You believed in me when I was just faking that I believed in myself. I would have never made it so far without you, and… I guess I'm quick to fall in love with women that make me want to keep trying. Save for the 'women' part, I guess you can relate to that."

She chuckles lightly. It seems to be a surprise to her as well.

"Did someone tell you to come and tell me all that?" Izuku asks, changing the subject.

"Counselor Inui did." She admits. It's a bit of a change of pace, one that leaves her a bit confused, but… "Why do you ask?"

"It was probably Principal Sasaki's idea." Izuku says calmly, before sighing. "It feels like something he would do." She looks at him questioningly, the tears temporarily slowing down a little. "You're Ayako, Uraraka. You're the Ayako that I managed to avoid failing. He probably had you come here to remind me of that. To make sure that I would find a reason to keep trying. A living, talking reminder that I was no longer the Deku, the hopeless victim."

"Deku?" Uraraka blinks at him, a few tears pushed out in the process. "For me you were always more of a 'Dekiru', you know?"

"That's…" He realizes suddenly that he has no goddamn idea of how to respond to that.

"Is that how he called you?" Uraraka asks. Izuku nods, it… brings back memories. Not the right type of. "Will it be alright if I call you the same way?"

"What?" Izuku didn't expect that.

"I'm going to call you Deku…" Uraraka smiles faintly. "... until you'll forget that this word ever meant something other than Dekiru."

"Oh, that…" Izuku pauses and takes a deep breath. "... that might work, but before we get to the D-word itself, please change it a little, like… Deku-kun, maybe?" She nods. "And… is there a name I can…"

"Mochi." She looks to the side, with a pained flinch on her face for a moment. "He… heard that I liked it, and… I just couldn't eat it ever since and…"

"Mocchan it is, then." Izuku replies. "We'll get to the original word… eventually." She nods faintly.

Izuku looks down, at the hand she has on the floor. Then back at her. After a few seconds of conflict on her face, she nods. So he (delicately) puts his hand on hers.

They stay that way for a few minutes, none of them knowing what to say. Not even knowing what to feel and think. But eventually, Uraraka remembers what she was here to talk about.

"Are you going to leave your room tomorrow?" She asks. "I… no, we need you. Kirishima made quite a speech earlier, and I think that he managed to avoid a big part of the local Network walking out on us, but… the Network needs you. The country needs you."

"I… I just don't know, Mocchan." Izuku replies quietly. "It's… it's just too much. All those people looking up to me, now… some stuff about my family was revealed during that battle, and it just makes the weight on me so much heavier and…"

"You'll manage to do it, Deku-kun." She replies, while still smiling faintly. The tears mostly stopped. "We believe in you, and… whatever happens, we'll be there for you. Despite all that happened, you've never given us a reason to stop trusting you, to stop believing that you're the right person for the job."

Izuku glances towards the now open door out of his bedroom, and sighs quietly.

"I wish…" He says. "... that I had as much of a trust in myself as you have in me."

"That would make you suicidally brave, and we don't want that either." Uraraka replies, before sticking a tongue at him when he looks at her with quite a disbelief on his face. Some tears still being there… kind of detracts from the comedic factor, but he still smiles at the sight. "Deku-kun, you aren't alone. You've bottled everything in for too long, trust me when I'm saying this, I have experience. Learn to lean somewhat on others."

"I…" He sighs again. "I'll try, just…" She gives him a moderately irritated state. Somehow it works, despite the signs of recent crying on her face. "I'll try. I have no idea where it'll bring us, but…"

She doesn't yet know about it, but… his mother trusted him with one of the most powerful quirks ever, too. She wouldn't do that just to wake him up from his stupor, not when her husband died to make sure that this quirk was born. Not when avenging him and freeing the world from someone like Hisashi Shigaraki was at stake.

She trusted that what happened to him, that whole 'breakdown' thing… It was because he failed to save someone. And that the memory of that would make him stay honest to what One for All was intended for. Saving people.

(He tried to not think about the fact that all of that wouldn't happen to Uraraka if his 'heroic father' didn't start a literal World War to spite his brother, damn you Yoichi)

"And if you need additional motivation to fight for the future of Japan…" Uraraka smiles. "... then I think that I have some good news for you."

(***)

Mei is still hugging Tsuyu (her unofficial emotional support frog, at least for now. The sight of her in a frog onesie is just too cute to ignore, even in circumstances like the current ones) when Izuku storms into the common room.

She has no idea how to identify the look on his face (there seem to be quite a lot of tears on it, that's for sure), but she has a faint feeling that she knows what it is about, especially considering the fact that his eyes drifted down towards her belly. Or, well, maybe Tsuyu that she was still hugging?

"Look, in my defense, you had unprotected vaginal intercourse with a girl that keeps comparing the things she loves to babies." Mei hurriedly speaks, freaking out internally over him being out of his room as much as Tsuyu does, although with less ribbiting. "Assuming that I was using contraceptives was a bit of a…"

Izuku runs forward and hugs her. To a slight vocal displeasure of Tsuyu was now sandwiched between them.

She promptly freed herself and then hugged them both, while ribbiting happily.

"You know that you were supposed to mention this to me earlier, right?" Izuku asks, the emotions overflowing in his voice.

"Yes, Shino explained it to me when she realized that the fact that I was planning to tell you meant that I still didn't do it." Mei admits. "Look, I'm really new to the whole relationship thing, and I promise that I'm going to tell you absolutely everything in the future, and…"

"And you were a part of the raid." Izuku suddenly cuts in, pulling his head back from the hug.

"Yes, of course, I had to make sure that you were safe, I stayed in the command center, but…" She tries to speak back, but he replies first.

"You took part in the raid while pregnant. And with my child." Izuku states in utter exasperation (and maybe with slight anger). Mei gulps loudly. "We're going to have a very serious discussion about it, and…" He looks to the side, at Tsuyu, who is still hugging them both. "Tsu, I'm sorry that I…"

"It's alright, ribbit." Tsuyu replies. "You needed to find yourself. I'm happy that you've managed to do it."

He doesn't deserve them, does he?

But in the meantime, they are missing something. Or, to be exact, someone.

"Are you going to join?" Izuku asks Uraraka, who was fidgeting nervously in the doorframe.

"Yeah, but… baby steps." She says, while walking towards them. Her hug is… scarce, and it's more of a standing right next to them on the opposite side to Tsuyu, her hands on Izuku and Mei's backs. But it's something.

This is going to be a long night. They have a lot to talk about together.

(***)

I think that the right term is 'underground stage of rape trauma syndrome'. If it makes you feel any better, she is clearly on the best way to recovery and happy end now that she got it out of the system and Izuku accepted her. Also, yeah, final member of the Izuku little... yeah, let's stick with the harem word but honestly it feels like giving the relationship in question a major disservice.

Uraraka's case (not the way it happened but the aftermath) is vaguely based on what certain acquaintance of mine went through. Which, by the way, I consider a proof that capital punishment should exist and be sometimes preceeded by tortures. Sigh.

[also if discovering that you're going to have a baby doesn't make you more motivate to fight for the future of your country, you're doing something wrong tbh]