Chapter Nineteen:

Izuku felt very awkward sitting in a big school bus with only All Might. This person he'd known so well had turned out to be a complete stranger and his greatest hero. Oh god, he'd hugged All Might! He'd vented to All Might! He'd eaten an All Might bento! Also, he'd lied to All Might and spied for his greatest enemy. At least Toshinori was driving, allowing Izuku to sit in the very back to escape any attempt at small talk. Izuku knew he owed Toshinori an apology for, well, everything. He just needed to work up his nerve.

The holograms of the other students only made this situation feel stranger. All the seats on the bus were filled with images of Izuku's classmates, looking perfectly real unless he stuck his hand through one of them. Apparently Nezu knew someone with a quirk capable of producing such illusions and sustaining them for a full day. The principal had taken no chances arranging the fake training camp. They had no idea if All for One could spy on the bus from a distance, but if so he would see the students arriving as planned.

The illusions chatted and ate imaginary snacks with their mouths opening and shutting silently. The bus was soundproof. No one watching from outside would be able to tell it was fake.

Earlier that morning, Izuku had gotten a text from All for One describing where he would hide to avoid the fighting until the time came to steal One for All. Hopefully that meant All for One believed everything was going according to plan.

Tomura had asked Izuku for recommendations over who to kidnap. Izuku had agonized over his reply a million times, trying to figure out what he would say if he didn't know the whole training camp was a trap. In the end, Izuku had asked Tomura not to kill anyone. He thought that answer would sound the most authentic. Izuku simply couldn't imagine himself deciding who would live or die. Tomura had replied with what was no doubt intended to be a motivational rant about how it all became easier after the first murder. All for One hadn't said anything. Izuku hoped that was a good sign.

At a hum from his phone, Izuku jumped. In case it might be All for One, he quickly checked his messages.

Shouto texted, Mr. Aizawa said you were out sick. How are you feeling? The training camp has been cancelled for unknown reasons, so you're not missing anything. It's very mysterious. I'm not supposed to be texting you. We were told to remain at the school and not tell anyone that we hadn't left for the training camp. Mr. Aizawa is coming to confiscate my phone goodbye.

The message from Katsuki popped up moments later. Shitty nerd, if you know something about the training camp getting canceled and didn't tell me then I will and there the message stopped mid-sentence. Presumably Katsuki had just lost his phone, too.

Izuku was glad U.A. was cracking down hard on message leaks. Until Inko was back safely, they couldn't be too careful. Kurogiri had found an excuse to lurk nearby her prison and had promised to grab Inko and leave at the first sign All for One had noticed the trap. Even so, Izuku would not believe his mother safe until he could see her with his own two eyes.

From the front of the bus, Toshinori cleared his throat. "Was that a message from All for One?"

Izuku startled. "No, just my friends." Maybe former friends after they found out the truth about what he'd done. Izuku was terrified to face Shouto in particular after lying so many times and taking advantage of the generous Endeavor Agency internship offer to conduct sabotage. If Shouto tossed his belongings out on the street then Izuku wouldn't blame him. "Mr. Aizawa took away their phones now."

"That's good. Nezu planned to use a device to disrupt cell phone transitions out of U.A. but either he turned it on late or it's not working."

"I'm sorry," Izuku blurted out.

Sounding confused, Toshinori asked, "Because Nezu's experimental device isn't working?"

Izuku looked down. "Because I spied on you, lied to you, and betrayed you."

"I don't blame you at all," Toshinori said forcefully. "You were protecting your mother."

Izuku mumbled, "I guess I should have told you the truth sooner."

With his legendary hearing, of course Toshinori heard. "If you had, I would have done everything in my power to help you. But who knows if it would have turned out better? We might have still needed to turn Kurogiri before we could find a way to safely rescue your mother. You were able to prevent U.S.J., Eri's kidnapping, and the training camp attack because you had insider information from All for One. You've saved so many people."

Sometimes he'd saved them from himself, but Izuku nodded half-heartedly.

Toshinori said, "If I'd revealed my identity sooner, you might have told me sooner. I'm sorry. I wanted a chance to get to know my potential successor without all the baggage that comes from being All Might. People treat a janitor differently from the number one hero. You were always kind to me when I wasn't important, which shows your true character."

Izuku swallowed a lump in his throat. "Were you talking to the other students in disguise too?"

"No, just you." Toshinori coughed. "You found me accidentally in my usual form, and I started pretending on an impulse."

Izuku was simultaneously relieved, guilty for being relieved, and sad that Toshinori didn't have any backup successors. He hated to leave his hero in a lurch. What if Toshinori didn't feel like he could trust anyone after this? That would be terrible. Izuku shouldn't be selfish, he should hope for his hero to find a new successor. Even though a part of him didn't want to give up on such an honor from his favorite hero. "Did you have anyone else in mind for One for All?"

Toshinori said, "My former sidekick recommended a wonderful boy named Mirio Togato. I offered him One for All before the school year started, but he turned me down. He didn't want to be seen as the next me, and frankly he didn't want another difficult-to-master quirk. However, I still think that young Togato is a fine future hero and I respect him for foraging his own path. So you don't need to feel pressured at all. I would always be happy to invite you out to lunch no matter what, even if you don't choose to come back to U.A."

Oh. So Toshinori was delicately hinting that Nezu planned to throw Izuku out. It was nothing Izuku hadn't expected. At least it would be nice to still be able to meet with his hero even if Izuku was no longer a candidate for One for All. Izuku didn't reply. He had a lump in his throat and feared he might cry if he tried to talk.

The bus resumed its awkward silence, made even more uncanny by fake Katsuki jumping in the air and setting off an explosion.

Eventually, Toshinori said, "I know your story about your family wasn't true, but I picked up the vibe that there are genuine difficulties with your father."

Izuku grunted. He wanted to talk about this topic even less than the ruin of his hero dream, and that was saying something.

Toshinori said, "You certainly have the right to be angry that your father trapped you in a deal with All for One."

Involuntarily, Izuku snorted. "That's the tip of the iceberg," he muttered.

"Ah. If you ever want to talk about it…" Toshinori's voice trailed off.

Izuku slouched down in his seat. The bus rattled down the road, hitting a pothole and riding over it.

Toshinori said, "I lost my parents at a young age. You probably already know that, it's common knowledge."

Izuku grunted. Of course every All Might fan knew. It was part of All Might's tragic backstory about overcoming adversity. All Might himself never talked about his childhood, which only made people spin up elaborate stories in their heads.

Toshinori said, "What fewer people know is that my parents rejected me for being quirkless, even before they died. My distant relatives did not want to take me in either, so I grew up in an orphanage. As a teenager, I lived on the streets for a while before Nana Shimura took me in. But after I became a hero, all my relatives crawled out of the woodwork. Countless distant cousins came to me with sob stories about needing money. When it first started, I was a college student living in America. My hero career was just starting to take off, but gear and tuition was expensive. I didn't have that much money, yet I tried to help out. It wasn't enough. They were convinced that all heroes had endless wealth, and I was holding out on them. My relatives started selling fake scandals about me to the newspaper. My aunt even faked my cousin's kidnapping to obtain a ransom from me. After she got caught, she cried about how hard it was to be a single mother and I ended up giving her the money, more than I could afford. Naturally that led to three more relatives faking kidnappings, including one where they lured me into a trap by real villains out to kill me."

Izuku understood that Toshinori was trying to relate to him, but he didn't like where this was going. "I suppose you're going to tell me that I have to forgive my father."

"What?" Toshinori turned around. He jerked the steering wheel, nearly driving them off the road. With a muttered curse, he fixed his eyes forward and straightened out the bus. Once the ride was smooth again, Toshinori said, "I didn't forgive my relatives. Not after I realized that I was going to be bled dry for the rest of my life. I gave each of them a lump sum in exchange for them signing a contract to never speak about me to the media or contact me again. I had to take out a loan from Gran Torino. It was worth the investment. They flipped out after I became number one hero and they realized they'd missed out on a far bigger payout. But anyone who broke the agreement and went to the press got the full force of my lawyers. This isn't me telling you to forgive your dad, this is me telling you that you don't have to. You can cut him out of your life and never look back."

This explained why the media didn't know much about All Might's family, despite their ferocious curiosity about his life. Izuku said, "I just assumed…I think Todoroki is going to forgive his father…I thought that was what heroes do. They always forgive people."

Toshinori said, "Young Todoroki needs to do what is right for him. You have to do what is right for you. Heroes don't have to be perfect paragons. I'm the number one hero, but I can be petty. I got way more satisfaction from suing my relatives than is probably healthy. I sent a couple to jail for breaking into Might Tower and stealing from me."

"Hmm." Izuku wondered if he could trick his father into committing a crime with jailtime attached. It wouldn't be quite as good as patricide, but Izuku could live with his father in jail. "Thank you. You gave me a lot to think about."

"Anytime," Toshinori said warmly. "Look! We've arrived."

Looking out the window, Izuku saw a series of cabins surrounded by forest. But he knew it was all fake.

Toshinori stepped off the bus, followed by holographic students. He waved. "Follow me."

As Izuku walked down the path, he glanced at the cabins. Curious, he stuck his hand through the wood. Meanwhile the hologram of Tenya walked through a tree. It looked like something from a buggy video game.

Toshinori said, "I suppose we can get rid of those, now. We set up traps and cameras around the camp perimeter, since we could pass that off as normal security. Nezu is confident that All for One can't see in here." He pressed a button on a remote control, and the holograms vanished.

Wondering where he could find the true trap, Izuku looked around.

Toshinori noticed. "I'll show you quickly." The cabins were arranged in a circle, with what appeared to be a blank patch of grass in the middle. Toshinori pressed a button on a remote. The ground vanished to reveal a deep pit with a shiny silver sphere in the middle.

Izuku walked around the sphere, noticing there were also jets sticking out of the dirt.

Toshinori said, "I can press a button and detonate an explosion, causing most of this area to cave in. Unfortunately All for One almost certainly has the ability to approximate flight. But the jets will release a liquid causing the ground to become sticky. They also can release knockout gas, several kinds in hopes of circumventing his immunity. There's a glass lid hidden among the trees that slides over. As long as I can knock All for One down, I can trap him in the hole. The sphere is the clever part. It has massive suction power and emits an energy similar to what the police use in their stun handcuffs."

Izuku asked, "Don't you risk being stuck down there yourself?"

Toshinori tapped the front of his costume. "This has been threaded with magnets that repel the ones on the sphere. No fight is risk free, but I have the advantage here. Now, you need to leave. I'll take you to the helicopter. You need to be out of here before the fight starts."

A sound came from the direction of the bus, like a tire deflating.

"Should we check on that?" Izuku asked, suddenly feeling nervous. Any disruption from the plan made him nervous.

"I'll check, you get to the helicopter," Toshinori ordered. "It's inside the hologram of the last cabin, you can't miss it."

Kurogiri was very new to emotions, and now he experienced two very unpleasant ones: anxiety and fear. There had never been fear when he'd been just following orders. Occasionally there had been anxiety about failure, but it had always been manageable. Now Kurogiri had worn the hallway carpet thin pacing back and forth. Finally, All for One called for a portal to the trap at the training camp, as planned. Kurogiri was grateful for shadows hiding his face, making it easy for him to conceal his emotions.

The instant All for One was gone, Kurogiri warped to Inko Midoriya's room. Kurogiri would have preferred to grab Tomura first, but 1. He'd struck a deal with the heroes; and 2. Tomura might raise a ruckus if he figured out something was wrong and fought back.

Inko was in her kitchenette, pouring over a recipe book. She looked up. "Kurogiri? Is Tomura with you?" She peered around him.

Kurogiri waved at a shadowy portal behind him. "Come with me at once."

Inko's chest heaved and her face paled. She clasped her hands together. Then she grabbed the recipe book and threw it at him.

In his surprise, Kurogiri barely dodged in time. Inko seized a frying pan. Belatedly, he realized that she must believe he was taking her to the doctor's lab to be turned into a Nomu.

"Stop!" Kurogiri raised his hands in surrender. "I'm taking you to U.A. I've defected."

Panting, Inko stared at him with her frying pan raised. Finally, she lowered it. "I suppose you wouldn't bother to lie just to subdue an old lady like me."

"You're not old, ma'am. Let's hurry." Kurogiri waved her forward.

Inko said, "If you're lying, and you feel even a little guilty about it, then please tell my son that I don't blame him." She stepped through the portal.

Kurogiri did not follow her. He immediately created another portal to Tomura's room.

Inko Midoriya stumbled out the other side clutching her frying pan and ready to go down swinging at the creepy doctor. When she saw the office of the principal of U.A., she burst into relieved tears. Sagging against the wall, she wiped her eyes with her elbow. The frying pan dinged a bit of wallpaper.

Nezu moved toward her. He seemed awkward in the face of a weeping woman. He cleared his throat. "Ma'am, we've arranged a trap for All for One. Your son should be headed back to U.A. shortly, and your husband is under hero protection in America."

"Hisashi?" Inko paled. The frying pan slipped from her numb fingers. "I specifically told Izuku that he didn't need to rescue Hisashi! Did he not understand my message? Oh, no, no, no."

Nezu frowned. "Izuku said something about that, yes, but I presumed it was because you were…estranged."

Inko grabbed the front of Nezu's collar and screamed, "Hisashi works for All for One!"

Hisashi Midoriya sat in the living room of his penthouse in the United States. It was a luxurious room, the expensive paintings and antique furniture matching his status. But even a day here alone had worn on his nerves. The two heroes standing outside the door had taken away his phone. They did not talk to him. Initially, they had been warm and friendly, promising to protect him and his daughter. When they found out his daughter was actually his girlfriend, the atmosphere had turned chilly remarkably fast. One of them had called Child Protective Services. There had been a scene. Hisashi hated scenes—he had the neighbors to think about. Of course Hisashi felt confident he'd done nothing wrong since his girlfriend was a full month over the age of sixteen, but he didn't want trouble for harboring a runaway minor, so he'd pretended that she'd lied to him and claimed to be eighteen. The fallout had ruined his romantic relationship and now he'd probably have to find a new one.

Glancing at his watch, Hisashi wondered if the trouble had already started. It had been long enough for All for One to have noticed. The heroes probably wouldn't tell Hisashi if anything had gone wrong with their precious plan. Assuming these lowly pawns even knew.

Sweat trickled down Hisashi's scalp, between the thin hairs of his combover. When off work, he wore a black leather designer jacket with golden embroidery that he believed made him look two decades younger. It pinched at his stomach. He considered changing. But the heroes glared at Hisashi whenever he walked past them.

There had been a third hero, but she'd left after her companions had stopped her from taking a swing at him. Apparently she had a teenage daughter. Hisashi would be suing her as soon as he could get in contact with his lawyers. He frankly suspected the remaining two heroes would not be enthusiastic about protecting him if All for One's agents attacked. Not that Hisashi had anything to worry about. He'd been loyal. Izuku could have lived if he'd followed orders, but since he hadn't, Hisashi had washed his hands of his errant offspring. Hisashi didn't want to live his entire life on the run from All for One, and just like he could acquire another girlfriend, he could also make another son.

Nezu pulled himself free. "I understand your distress, ma'am, but we took precautions. Your husband wasn't allowed a phone, internet access, or any other means of potentially contacting All for One. We didn't even let our own students have their phones so of course we didn't trust a—"

Inko interrupted, "All for One has my bastard husband check in with him every hour. If Hisashi doesn't sent a particular text at a particular time, then All for One will know heroes have taken him into custody. All for One must have already learned about your trap a while ago."

Nezu's fur stood on end. He lunged for the phone on his desk.

Kurogiri appeared in Tomura's bedroom. "Tomura, Mrs. Midoriya would like to see you. She baked fresh cookies."

Tomura sat cross-legged on the floor, playing a video game. "Later, I'm almost at a save point."

Kurogiri cursed his poor timing. Tomura became exceptionally difficult to move when playing games. "If you plan to make it to the training camp on time, you need to have a cookie now. They're fresh out of the oven."

Tomura didn't look up from his game. "Didn't Sensei tell you? The training camp attack is off. Something about some spy not checking in. Ugh, I think he's gotten too cautious in his old age. It's probably nothing. At least Player Two will be happy the hero brats get to live another day."

Kurogiri had a bad feeling. Abandoning all subtlety, he lunged, about to open a portal under Tomura that would take him to U.A.'s carefully prepared cell.

An electric shock sprang from Kurogiri's neck brace. He collapsed to the floor. In the doorway, the girthy shadow of Dr. Garaki loomed. The doctor said, "Good thing Sensei was tracking Inko Midoriya. He warned me to activate the safeguard as soon as she vanished."

Tomura decayed his controller and shouted, "Hey! What did you do?"

Kurogiri's world faded to black. Terror filled him as he heard the doctor say, "Don't worry. Kurogiri will be back to normal after a few adjustments."

As Izuku rounded the holographic cabin, a prickling ran down his spine. He'd learned not to ignore such instincts. They often weren't random hunches, but rather the result of him picking up on clues from his surroundings. Izuku stopped and closed his eyes. With the holograms gone, he focused on his hearing. Izuku heard the sound of slobbering coming directly from inside the fake cabin. Faint though it might be, he made out more than one voice.

Focusing on the sound, Izuku fired lasers from his knees, his shoulders, and his navel.

From the yelp, he'd hit at least one. That had been the purpose of using all his lasers at once. A Nomu rushed out of the hologram, singed on the shoulder and growling. Three more followed.

Izuku hated to fight the Nomu now he knew they'd once been people, but he had no choice. The attack had come early, but hopefully they could still launch the trap. Izuku didn't want to become All Might's burden. The hero couldn't trigger the sphere until Izuku was gone. No matter what, he had to make it to the remote-controlled helicopter.

The Nomu attacked in a disordered frenzy. Izuku blasted his naval laser at full power, knocking the first one into his compatriots.

Normally, Izuku would be out of juice now. Normally, he wouldn't have used his lasers so carelessly. But Izuku had a new trump card: Quantum Energy Laser, which turned energy loss into gain. Ironically, All for One had helped design it. Izuku's belt now had a hexagonal microcavity made of semiconductors, generating more quantum particles with each degree of energy loss. Now every time Izuku fired his laser, it kept getting stronger.

One Nomu was down. The other three tried to surround him. Izuku could feel the energy buzzing, stronger and stronger. The trick would be handling the recoil.

It would be disgusting, but Izuku had an idea. He lay down against the fallen Nomu, then fired the full force of Quantum Energy Laser.

Every remaining Nomu disintegrated. The force drove both Izuku and his Nomu cushion into the ground. Standing up, Izuku tried to ignore the smell coming off his back. He ran for the last cabin.

As soon as Izuku stepped through the hologram, he could see a white launching pad. Sure enough, the helicopter rested in the middle. Izuku opened the door and hopped inside.

Toshinori had been expecting All for One, not a mere Nomu. But this particular Nomu was a bitch to fight. Shock absorption keep negating his punches. Toshinori couldn't activate the trap until young Midoriya took off. Besides, he was saving that for All for One. Toshinori was very worried about young Midoriya running into another Nomu. Time to finish this fight.

Desperation gave him inspiration. Toshinori knocked the Nomu halfway into the ground, burying its legs. The arms latched onto him with unnatural strength.

In the old days, Toshinori would have easily been able to break free. He felt the ticking of his time limit. Only part of his quirk came at his call. Gritting his teeth, he smashed over a hundred punches until the Nomu fell.

Whirling around, Toshinori ran. He felt a faint flicker of relief as he heard the helicopter take off. But he didn't slow down. He needed to check the scene, just to be absolutely certain young Midoriya had left.

As soon as Izuku closed the helicopter door, he reached for the button to activate autopilot. A very familiar rasping sound came from the driver's seat. Hardly daring to breathe, Izuku turned his head. All for One sat next to him in the helicopter.

A sickly sweet scent filled Izuku's lungs. He tried to fire his laser, but he had already slipped into unconsciousness.

In the flickering hologram of the fake cabin, Toshinori found a note. I've taken the prize. –All for One.

OMAKE TIME!

Omake: All for One Would Have Let Izuku Murder His Dad!

Toshinori: Sorry I can't be the cool dad and let you murder your father. But we can at least talk about how to screw him over legally.

Izuku: (With his best puppy eyes) Father I Crave Violence.

Toshinori: Aw, he called me father. On second thought, murder is okay! I'm a moral relativist now.

Author's Note: You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?

Quantum energy lasers do exist, not exactly as shown here, but close enough for me to justify that technology marches on.

Somehow ordinary workaholic salaryman Hisashi became an even worse dad than All for One. That took real effort. The heroes messed up their plan when they decided to save Hisashi. In Nezu's defense, you can't be a hero and refuse to save a civilian because his son doesn't like him very much. Nezu didn't have the option of just ditching Hisashi no matter how much he deserved it.

Inko got rescued because All for One didn't know about Kurogiri defecting, and he never would have expected such a thing from a Nomu. The tracker on Inko tipped off All for One in time to capture Kurogiri. However, All for One realized the training camp was a trap designed to capture him much earlier because of Hisashi failing to check in with him. That gave All for One time to figure out a way to grab Izuku. Thus the trap would have failed regardless, but it's Hisashi's fault that Izuku got kidnapped.