The Aftermath(Don't You Know That Your Actions Have Consequences?)
Shocking: Massive Terrorist Attack Ends In Tragedy!
257 lives lost, 20,000 more injured in an unprecedented attack on Deika City
Last Wednesday at 5:43PM, Winged Hero: Hawks arrived to the scene of possibly the largest terrorist attack since All Might's rise to popularity. He...Read More
Aizawa pinches the bridge of his nose, elbows resting on one of the many papers scattered across his desk. His desk lamp casts a harsh glow over his messy desk, the only light in the near pitch black staff room.
His colleagues left hours ago, and he's left sitting alone in a dark room with a pounding headache and an overwhelming sense of disappointment.
A half-full cup of coffee rests on the corner of his desk, though it went cold a long time ago.
Some part of him wants to go to the teacher's dorms, to collapse on the couch and sleep like Hizashi had urged him to before he goes out for patrol tonight. But that would require being in the same building as All Might, and he doesn't have the energy to deal with the blonde idiot right now.
He sighs, reaching into one of his desk drawers and pulling out a bottle of eyedrops.
It's been a week.
A week of interviewing students, a week of talking with the police, a week of meeting with Nezu, a week of scrambling to piece together the little information they have to figure out what happened to Izuku Midoriya.
Jirou and Shouji were the first ones interviewed.
"He made two phone calls. One of them was with someone who sounded male, but I'm not too sure since it kept cutting out. They seemed like they were in danger, and they asked him to call a doctor?" Shouji recalls.
"I see. Do you remember anything else from the first phone call?"
"Well..."
Aizawa twitches, resisting the urge to start pacing as he watches his student talk to Detective Tsukauchi. It 'd taken two days to convince his superiors to let him step away from the high priority case he'd been working on, and his time here is limited enough that any pause in conversation grates on his nerves.
"I'm not entirely sure, but I think in the first part I heard that someone got kidnapped. You should check with Jirou on that."
The detective nods, scribbling something down in his notebook as Nezu tilts his head, tail swishing as he listens to Shouji talk with a gleam in his eye.
The black haired man stares up at the ceiling, blinking to absorb the liquid into his strained eyes.
"Yeah, the person on the other line screamed out a phone number, and then the call cut off."
"That was when Midoriya started to get agitated, correct?"
"Mhm. His breathing was super fast and sort of irregular, and his heart rate was faster than normal. Plus his Quirk was doing that flashing thing." Jirou says, twirling her earjacks in her fingers.
"Do you remember the phone number?"
"I think so? The call was pretty staticky, but I'm pretty sure it was—"
His fingers trace over the cold plastic cover of his phone, eyes drifting to the small, crumpled piece of paper in the middle of his messy desk.
"Did you hear anything that happened during the second call?"
"Some of it. The person on the other line clearly didn't know who he was, and called him something I didn't hear because Shinsou was shouting right beside me. Then Sensei activated his Quirk and I got distracted...when I turned back around Eri was just standing there with this...awful look on her face." Shouji's voice drops a bit as he says the last part, and he looks down at his lap, expression hidden by the mask over his face.
The number Jirou gave them, the only lead they'd had in Midoriya's disappearance, is disconnected. No matter how many times he called...
"Then Midoriya threatened them, and they told him they didn't know where whoever they were talking about were, but that they would send someone to check on them."
Detective Tsukauchi grimaces, the scratching of his pen pausing as he looks up at the purple haired student.
"And that's when he was...?"
"...Yeah. It was...really fast, and I didn't even hear anything coming. I have no idea what happened, he was just there one minute and gone the next."
None of the other students they interviewed had any useful information, and they all had a sort of dazed look in their eyes. Even Shinsou and Todoroki were...
"I understand that you and a student named Shinsou have a close relationship with Midoriya. Do you have anything you want to tell us?"
Todoroki stares at the detective coldly, expression and body language stiff and closed off. They've been sitting here for at least ten minutes, and the boy hasn't said a word. It feels like the beginning of the year all over again, and Aizawa can tell that Detective Tsukauchi is starting to get frustrated with his student.
"...I don't know."
He perks up, lifting his head from his scarf.
"I'm sorry—?"
"I said I don't know." His student hisses, frost creeping up his cheek as he abruptly gets to his feet.
"Todoroki—" Aizawa gets to his feet, but the door is already slamming shut, leaving him reaching for open air.
Closed off. They'd barely left Eri's side since Midoriya had disappeared, locking themselves in Midoriya's dorm room. Then there was an incident with Shinsou's interview. Detective Tsukauchi tried to suggest interviewing Eri, Shinsou had given him a venomous glare and threatened to tell the media about Midoriya's disappearance if they even approached the dorms.
That had ended the conversion quickly.
But clearly the detective had contacted All Might, and the blonde man went to the dorms in order to convince the boys to let them talk to Eri—only to be encased in a huge glacier and collectively told to get the fuck out. Aizawa couldn't even blame his students for the reaction and didn't bother reprimanding them, just dragged All Might to Recovery Girl and left him to lick his wounds.
At least Nezu had cancelled classes as they investigated the incident. It was a matter of schoolwide safety if one of their students had been kidnapped right under their noses without any alarms going off. The first day, students had seemed appreciative of the break, but whispers are picking up, and Aizawa isn't sure how much longer the chimera will be able to suppress the inevitable media storm. They were already incredibly lucky that no one had realized that Midoriya dropped off of the face of the earth for three weeks, but a second disappearance on school property in front of the entire first year hero course will inevitably be sniffed out by the vultures.
Aizawa glares at the papers in front of him, the exhaustion set deep into his bones settling even further as he unclenches his jaw and presses his forehead against the cool papers.
Damn it.
He's smiling. A gentle smile, one that promises everything is going to be alright as the tall grass sways around him. He holds out his scarred hand for her, both a question and a promise.
Grass tickles her cheeks as she runs as hard as she can, hand reaching out to take his as her lungs burn from the sheer effort .
Their fingertips touch—
And he fractures, disappearing in a burst of blinding yellow light as she screams, the grass field replaced with unforgiving concrete and echoing footsteps that promise pain—
"—ri! ERI!"
Her eyes snap open, already burning and cheeks feeling sticky. There's a blurry purple blob in front of her, and she stiffens, recalling the purple feathers that drifted into puddles of red blood when he got mad.
"Eri? It's me, Hitoshi."
Hitoshi.
The little girl shudders, blinking the tears out of her eyes. Hitoshi comes into focus, eyebrows furrowed as he watches her.
"You had a nightmare. Are you feeling okay? Do you need anything?" He asks, voice low and rumbly.
Eri swallows, throat scratchy and sore as her chest constricts.
Why is he being so nice?
She trembles, wrapping her arms around herself.
Doesn't he remember? It's my fault...
Her vision goes blurry again.
It's my fault he—
"It isn't—"
He reaches for her, but she shrinks away with a choked sob, clutching her hands tightly together as she retreats to the wall. She can't breathe past the lump in her throat, and her body shudders as she gasps for air, curling in on herself.
I'm sorry.
She should've known he was right. She should've known that her curse would take Izuku away from her.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'msorrypleasejust—
The boy with a kind smile and scarred hands is gone, and it's all her fault.
He jolts awake with a gasp, hand outstretched for something—
"Finallly! We were beginning to think you actually died!"
His head whips towards the voice, barely even registering the person he's addressing through the haze of sleep.
"Where's Eri?"
Also, did he just say I died?
"Who?"
"I think he means the little girl with white hair." Someone else responds.
He blinks hard, trying to clear the sleep from his eyes.
They sound kind of familiar...
"She's not here, kid."
His eyes widen, and he slowly turns around, stiffening as he makes contact with a pair of kind black eyes that haunted his computer for a solid week.
Nana Shimura.
He rests his head against the empty throne he's leaning on, only half listening to Fourth talk.
Inky black sky surrounds them, more alike to a void if not for the brilliant, colorful stars that interrupt that nothingness. They glow and pulse, and if he focuses on one too long, it seems to glow brighter, as if responding to his attention. It's...weird, but a lot better than the swirling smoke and glowing eyes. At least here, he could see his opponents' features.
"—re you even listening to him?"
The white haired boy blinks, attention suddenly diverted to a person with thick, textured hair that almost covers their blazing orange eyes. Well, almost. He can see them glaring from here, and from what he remembers, this is Sixth.
Right, they're the one who's memories got shoved into my head a while ago.
They're also the one who's Quirk he's been trying to access for months, with no avail. He's pretty sure the only reason he even got Stealth is because of the amount of stress he was under and the fact that he didn't fully realize that he'd be absorbing two very different people's lives and Quirks into his head at once. Of course, if that had been what was necessary to save the League...
"I'm not dead. What else is there to talk about?" He shrugs, tugging at a strand of his shock white hair.
He wants to say he's surprised, but he's always known he'd go white much earlier than other people if he didn't continuously dye it. Though, now that the stress of One For All made him go fully white, it seems like a lot of effort to section and dye his thick, tangly mass of hair.
Maybe I'll just leave it alone.
"There's nothing to talk about? We are the previous Holders of One For All, why don't you show a little respect—"
"I am not showing respect to the people who have shoved their memories, Quirks, and experiences into my head without my consent. Apologies if I'm a little underwhelmed, especially considering how your deep rooted self-hatred got your student killed." He retorts, ignoring how several of the other Holders wince and lean away from both of them.
"You—"
"Akane, please sit down." The man with long white hair gently interrupts, his face pale and gaunt even in death.
He's the First.
As if hearing his thoughts, the white haired man locks eyes with him. Green on green. Ghost and boy. The First and the Ninth. The beginning and the end.
Faint echoes of memories rush through his head. A colorful blanket. Shouting. Silence. Shuddering with cold as sweat trickles down his back. A bowl of soup. Reading a comic book by flashlight. A hand, once outstretched to help, now only holding the promise of pain. Promises broken, shattered in the wake of a vast shadow.
"Nine, we need you to listen. This could seriously impact One For All as a whole—"
The white haired boy tilts his head, eyes narrowing at the ghost.
"You all mean that I have some level of access to All For One, and that he's not as dead as Yagi thought, right?"
Silence.
"I'm not stupid. Hisayoshi was the one that gave you One For All, and judging from your hospital records, it's unlikely you ever had a Quirk in the first place. He never would've given you that stockpiling Quirk if he thought it would do anything but improve your quality of life. It obviously didn't, but at that point you realized he was blinded by power and just pretended to get better to get out. I'm not sure if I only have access to the Quirks he took before One For All, or if I have access to every Quirk he is currently in possession of, but I'm guessing it's the latter since he's still breathing. Either way, now I have even more volatile Quirks to hide from everyone in my life." He shrugs, getting to his feet.
Maybe if I pinch myself, I'll wake up.
"But All For One—"
"Has no intention of killing me. If anything, Yagi is at higher risk since they ripped each other apart like wild animals eight years ago." He cuts Second off, giving himself a hard pinch.
Really? I need to get up and find Eri and the League, not waste my time talking to dead people.
"Nine, we really didn't mean to be so violent, we just got excited at the prospect of contacting a living Holder. We didn't realize we were giving you anything aside from our Quirks until recently."
The white haired boy's eye twitches.
"What do you mean, 'you didn't realize you were giving me anything aside from your Quirks'? I hadn't even mastered the base Quirk when you assholes started dumping new Quirks and disturbing memories in my head. I could've seriously injured or killed someone, and you all certainly didn't help with my peace of mind since you started forcing me awake in the most jarring way possible."
Silence as realization dawns on the Holder's faces, coupled with horror and guilt that gives him a rush of satisfaction.
"But you were reaching back to us..." Someone whispers.
"Yeah, only after I figured there was nothing I could do to stop my mind being violated and just decided to take all of them in hopes of getting Stealth and going back to a place where I wasn't miserable."
He looks around again and sighs, half-wishing someone would dump a bucket of water on him or something. Waking up to his fingers being cut off sounds like more fun than continuing this conversation.
His eyes drift to the edge of the crumbling throne room, lingering on the cluster of stars populating the inky nothingness surrounding the room he's in.
Maybe...
"Midoriya, we—" Nana stands up, walking towards him with an apologetic look on her face.
He ignores it, brushing past her and moving through the gap in the thrones, eyes fixed on the edge. From the corner of his eye, he notices a figure sitting hunched over the darkest corner, right where the structure drops off into nothing, their smokey hand swirling in the inky sky like it's a bowl of water.
"What are you doing—"
"Hold on—"
"WAIT—"
Nine steps off of the edge, and the sky bends around him, the stars glowing brighter and brighter, overtaking the spaces between them until they become pure white light, so overwhelmingly bright that he raises his hand—
Izuku's eyes snap open.
Muted sunlight streams over him, and he stares at the yellow canopy above him for a moment before sitting up.
He's currently in the middle of a large, luxurious room decorated in yellows, off whites and lace trimming. There are two doors, one opening into a bathroom, and the other closed, and a loveseat and plush armchair in the corner(it's clearly been occupied recently, and he notes the distinct lack of dust anywhere in the room with mild amusement). A breeze brushes his cheeks, and he turns to look at the opened window, catching a glimpse of bare trees and a cloudy sky before the curtains flutter back into place.
The white haired boy frowns, but pushes the covers off of his body and silently slips off of the bed. His hero costume is gone, replaced with overly large black sweatpants and an unbuttoned, navy blue dress shirt that hangs past his fingers. His torso is covered in clean white bandages, and he can feel one on his face too. The soft carpet almost swallows his feet as he pads towards the closed door, absentmindedly reaching for a hairtie—
But the only one he had is gone, and his curly white hair tangles around his face, tickling his nose and hovering in the corners of his eyes. He sighs, deciding to leave it alone and opens the closed door.
Izuku steps out into a long, cream colored hallway with red carpeting and dozens of closed doors stretching out to either side of him. Dull, filtered sunlight filters in from the skylights above, giving the entire hallway a saturated look.
A static sense of calm washes over him as he activates Stealth, padding down the long corridor.
It takes him a couple minutes, but eventually the hallway opens into a grand, Western style entrance hall with curving staircases and a glass chandelier that catches rays of light from the windows below. As he decends the stairs, he notes the mud and grime coating the marble floor closest to the entrance, along with a smear of dried blood along the otherwise pristine walls. None of the coat hooks are in use, but he spots a lone pair of shoes tucked behind a shoe rack.
The marble floor is cool beneath his feet as he skirts around the edge of the mess, eyes flickering in between three closed doors, two shadowed by the staircases. They all look pretty much the same, but something in his gut tells him to open the one on the left.
He creeps towards the large door, Stealth still activated as he slowly presses down on the gilded handle, easing it open and peering inside.
It's a fairly large room with a single table and dozens of chairs occupying the middle of it. Windows cover one wall, and the others hold eraserboards, and there's a thin, newer model projector sitting in the middle of the table. The faint smell of something cooking makes him perk up slightly. He turns around, leaving the door he came through slightly ajar before turning back to the much smaller door on the other side of the conference room.
"Meow?"
Izuku pauses.
"Meow?"
He turns around, eyebrows raising when he sees the orange and black kitten perched on the confrence table.
How...?
Green eyes meet amber, and the animal meows again, a little louder than before.
"Shh." The white haired boy presses a finger to his lips as the kitten pads towards him, tail raised high.
It stops just short of the edge of the table, looking up at him with large amber eyes and meows again. He looks back at the door.
Slowly, he reaches out, allowing the animal to sniff at his hand. It lets out another squeaky meow and rubs against his crooked fingers, as if urging him to pet it. He gives it a scratch under the chin, then retracts his hand—
"Mrrow!"
The kitten launches itself at him, tiny claws catching on the fibre of his bandages as it desperately scrabbles to prevent itself from falling to the floor.
"...Fine." He sighs, gently cupping its body and carefully removing it's claws from the bandages on his torso. It squeaks, wiggling around in his cupped hands as he lifts it up to his shoulders, holding his hands there for a moment before he registers the pinpricks of the kitten's claws and the featherlight weight.
The smell of food is getting stronger, and with the kitten quieted, staticky calm washes over him again. He walks right up to the closed door, pressing his cheek to the dark wood. When he doesn't hear anything, he cracks open the door, scanning the dark room filled with cloth covered furniture and a cold fireplace. A fine layer of dust covers everything, and he can tell it hasn't been disturbed for a while.
Except...
His eyes drift to the strand of warm light coming from the far side of the room, a beacon in the dark, abandoned room. The smell of food and warmth leaks from the cracked door, and he creeps forwards.
Carefully, he rests the tips of his fingers against the door, getting as close as he dared without moving the door and peeking into the room.
"Kurogiri?"
Kurogiri freezes, half-wondering if the quiet voice is just his imagination. Slowly, he turns to meet a pair of bright green eyes. Eyes that he worried he would never see again.
CRASH!
The bowl in his hands shatters on the floor, but he barely notices, already walking towards the white haired boy. He reaches out, pulling Izuku into a tight embrace.
The grim look on everyone's face as Sako produced a marble from his pocket. Toga staring at the floor, tears pricking her eyes. Watching as two broken, battered bodies materialize on the floor. His heart drops to his stomach as he stares at them, their features nearly unrecognizable under all of the blood.
His mist flickers.
Even with the blood cleaned off and a new change of clothes, he's reminded once again of how young the hero student is. He's pale and thin and covered in more scar tissue than skin. Some look years old, others are fresh, like the one on his wrist and cheek. How he'd managed to heal from Tomura's Quirk was a miracle. Hell, the fact that he's still breathing is a miracle.
Sensei had said he'd be fine, but still...
As he hovers at the boy's bedside, watching the boy's chest rise and fall with shallow breaths after Tomura woke up with a fully functioning arm mere hours ago, he wonders if he'll ever see a shade of green quite like Izuku's eyes again.
He didn't quite believe it. Didn't quite believe that the small, pale boy wouldn't stop breathing if there wasn't someone constantly monitoring him. Sako had volunteered, but there was only so long the man could stay awake, and he didn't trust anyone else to do it.
"You..."
The door behind them slams open, and the boy in his arms tenses, fingers tightly grabbing at his shirt at the sudden noise.
"What happened? Did they come back? Did they—"
Kurogiri opens a warp gate, ready to send whoever barged in right into the Mariana Trench—but the boy in his arms wiggles, his shock of white curls tickling the misty man's cheek as he rests his chin on his shoulder.
"Hey Mr. Compress!"
"You woke up! Awesome! Seriously? I thought he was dead for sure."
The white haired boy looks over to see a blonde man wearing a cast sitting on the couch, a smile on his face as he leans forwards but doesn't quite get up.
"Jin?"
"The one and only, kiddo! Duh."
"Hold on, you thought I was dead? I mean I thought I was dead but—" He tries to backtrack, but is cut off.
"Izuku, you were covered in more blood than Tomura and took multiple hits from someone several times your size." Mr. Compress says, expression solemn as Magne and Himiko's arms tighten around him. They hadn't let go since Kurogiri and Mr. Compress had guided him into this room.
The white haired boy winces.
Yeah, that probably looked bad.
"I'm really sorry for scaring you. It's fine now, and I'm—"
"Supposed to be resting." Kurogiri announces, as mist tickles his bare feet. One moment he's on the floor and the next he's on a couch, still securely in Himiko and Magne's grasp(somehow, the kitten had gotten into his hair and managed to avoid any sort of attention so far).
Dabi flops down right beside them, stretching his arm across the back of the couch, not quite touching Izuku but coming close enough that he can feel the heat warming the back of his neck. Magne tightens her hold, then lets him go, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief as Mr. Compress and Kurogiri crowd onto Jin's couch. Spinner takes the armchair, but is promptly warped into the open space beside Dabi.
"You don't need to apologize Bush, I'm just happy to see you awake. You were asleep for so long, we were worried you were in a coma, and no one knew what to do—" She cuts herself off with a loud sniff, dabbing at her eyes a little more aggressively.
The white haired boy frowns.
"How long was I out?"
Did I take a long time to wake up?
"It's been a week since Deika City." Dabi responds, turquoise eyes blazing with some unknown emotion.
"...Oops?"
"So I was running through the city, trying to get away from Re-Destro—That fucking asshole! I'll kill him the next time I see him!—and then I run into Spinner and he asks me where the real me is—dumbass, do I look like a clone to you—and I tell him it is the real me and then there's this big flash of light and the next thing I know I see Compress running—you know it's going to be good if he runs—and he was holding Shigaraki so me and Spinner went after him and then we get to the edge of this HUGE crater—" Jin sweeps his uninjured arm out, nearly hitting Kurogiri in the face as he sets the tray filled with steaming tea down on the small table in the middle of the room. "—it looked like a bomb went off! And then we saw Compress running towards someone with white hair and we were super confused but then we heard him calling your name and we started running too—I nearly broke my leg in that fall—and then we realized it was you and we heard shouting and everyone was there and then there was more shouting and—so much shouting, it was really annoying—we realized that Re-Destro—the grand asshole himself—was right there, so we grabbed him and—"
"And then Mr. Compress went BAM! And Shiggy told all of the meanies that he was going to kill the big one if they didn't surrender, but they didn't." Himiko pouts, half of her body draped over Izuku and the other half draped over Magne.
"But then Re-Destro—if I ever see him again, I'm going to break both of his arms, let him see how he feels—woke up and told them not to attack and said something about losing and that—'whoever he lost to was the better person and needed to be acknowledged as such', which is just the asshole way of saying he lost and that they needed to get over it—he'd give us whatever we wanted. So we asked for his nicest house! "
"You mean..." Izuku gestures to the room around him with raised eyebrows.
"It seemed fair." Spinner responds, blowing on the steam coming from his mug.
"Also we needed a place to crash and call someone to come pick us up!" Himiko chimes in.
"It was a risk, but you, Tomura and Jin were marbled so you wouldn't lose blood while we waited." Mr. Compress adds, already sipping his own tea.
The white haired boy nods slowly, shifting so that the kitten in his arms—Jiji was what Kurogiri called it—stops digging its claws into him. Unfortunately it doesn't work, but it does jog his memory.
"Hold on, what happened with Gigantomachia?"
Everyone exchanges a look.
"...Well..."
He tenses, bracing himself for bad news.
"He gave us a ride here." Dabi says bluntly.
What?
"The cult bastards were trying to get us into vans to drive us up here, but the rocky bastard showed up and scooped Mr. Compress, asking about 'Lord'. Apparently he could smell 'Lord' on him or something like that, so we got the directions from the cult people and had him take us here."
The white haired boy opens his mouth, then closes it, at a loss for words.
"You mean the guy that attacked you for weeks just...carried you here? Without squishing you or trying to fight you?"
"Yup." Dabi replies, kicking his feet up on the coffee table.
"Dabi."
Dabi removes his feet from the coffee table.
"Anyway, we ransacked this place, found a phone, and called Kurogiri. He picked up after the first ring, and warped here as soon as we gave him the coordinates. Apparently he was on vacation while we were getting our asses kicked and his secondary Quirk activated and told him we were getting our asses kicked but he ignored it in favor of reading the trashiest romance book of last century." The burned man finishes, shooting Kurogiri a look.
The misty man sighs and leans back in the armchair he'd settled in, glowing yellow eyes narrowed into slits.
"I do not have to explain myself to children who jump headfirst into the most dangerous scenario possible the moment I turn around. You're all collectively worse than Tomura when I tried to teach him how to swim."
Izuku snorts.
"That includes you."
Izuku suddenly becomes extremely focused on the kitten in his arms.
"Kurogiri, I—"
"Yes, that includes you too, Atsuhiro. You were supposed to be the adult while I was gone, but you weren't even the one who tried to call me." Kurogiri sighs, and the performer presses his hand to his chest, expression filled with indignation.
"I told them to call you, but we couldn't get good reception where we were so we decided to call you when we got to the outskirts of the city. But then someone was there and we got distracted. Plus, Shuuchi tried to call you later, isn't that right?"
Spinner leans away from the two men, clutching his mug like it's about to be snatched out of his hands at any second.
"Please don't bring me into this."
The two men descend into bickering(it's mostly Mr. Compress trying to convince Kurogiri that he's an actual adult while Kurogiri lists off all of the times he's seen the man run into/trip over things because he got distracted by something shiny) and Izuku gently pets the kitten in his lap, mind swirling with the new information.
Still, something is bothering him.
What happened to Tomura?
This entire time they've been talking, he hasn't seen the man anywhere. Is he okay? Was his arm treated? Did they take him to a doctor? Or did he...
"Oi, pipsqueak. What the hell happened with your Quirk? I thought it was bone breaking, but then there was lightning and those weird tentacles and I'm pretty sure I saw you hovering at some point." Dabi asks lowly, tone casual.
The white haired boy stiffens.
Oh no.
How would he even go about explaining the absolute mess that is One For All, much less passing off three different Quirks as one?
"Just lie."
Three advises. His eye twitches.
That's super specific and really helpful!
Not.
Fuck you, now I'm talking to a ghost in my head instead of thinking of a good excuse.
A door opens, and Izuku relaxes, silently thanking whoever opened it and saved him from talking about his bullshit legacy Quirk.
Someone walks in. Tall, lanky, and with fluffy light blue, almost white hair hanging over face. He's dressed in a too large dress shirt and loose sweatpants, and, most importantly, two whole arms. Not even a bandage to be seen, just new scars creeping up the man's arms and bare hands. Hands that twitch when Izuku looks up, meeting his bright red eyes.
"...I didn't need your help."
The white haired boy grins, feeling the cotton bandage on his face loosen a bit as relief floods through him.
"No, you didn't."
Shigaraki's fingers twitch, eyes swirling with emotion.
"Stop being weird and come over here, Crusty. We can't pin him down with an uneven number of people." Dabi calls, voice gruff as he gestures towards the lanky man.
A pause. A moment of hesitation.
Red eyes drift to the bandage on Izuku's face.
Oh.
"Don't worry about it, I've had worse." He reassures the villain, who twitches at his words.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better? I still messed up your face." Shigaraki bites out, hands flexing as he shoots the boy on the couch a glare.
"Honestly, it's fine—"
Danger Sense flares, and he cuts himself off, eyes flicking to the door Tomura just came through. The door that a new person is coming through. A scarred person with no distinguishable facial features aside from a mouth in a wheelchair rolls in, a respirator over their mouth and a large orange and white cat on their lap.
The white haired boy tilts his head, scrunching his eyebrows.
They notice his attention, and their head turns, ever so slightly, towards him.
And One For All explodes.
To Meet(The Father) Pt.2
One For All explodes , seven different voices screaming in wordless anger as Danger Sense flares so violently that he jerks backwards, lightning sparking off of his skin unbidden. Colors flash wildly through the air, parts of features and faces as six people's collective hatred courses through him, all pointed at the man in the wheelchair.
"—YOU FUCKING—"
"—TURN YOUR RIBCAGE INTO A HAT—"
"—I'LL FINISH WHAT EIGHT STARTED—"
"—CEMENT INTO YOUR—"
"—RIP YOUR RAISIN DICK OFF YOU INSUFFERABLE—"
"—USE YOUR SPINE TO BEAT YOU TO DEATH—"
Blood trickles down his face as Black Whip lashes out, stopping several of the ghosts with their transparent hands mere inches away from the man's throat. They all turn to look at him, disbelief in their eyes as he stares them down with a neutral, almost bored expression.
"Are you done?"
Five ghosts stare at him, their forms flickering and threatening to disappear as the green lightning dies. His head is pounding, and their emotions are still strong, but he shoves it all down, watching them look over at each other, then down at the Quirk that restrains them with such surprise that he almost laughs.
"Midoriya, we're just trying to help—"
"Your help isn't wanted or appreciated." He cuts Nana off, taking advantage of their collective confusion to completely deactivate One For All.
The ghosts disappear, along with the black tendrils curling around his arms and hands.
It's completely silent.
Great. Perfect. Thanks so much for the help, you managed to completely fuck me over again, in a completely new way!
Izuku sighs, crooked hands trembling as he looks back at the man in the wheelchair, ignoring the faint screaming of the Holders in his head.
How hadn't he noticed it before?
The careful way of wording things, the intense curiosity about Quirks, the deep rooted rage towards the system and all that it stood for. His voice had changed, but Izuku suspects it's more due to injury than an intention to hide who he was. Though, back then, he didn't have any way to identify the man that hunted down One For All Holders for decades.
He stares at the man for a moment, silently processing the fact that he's had two full conversations with All For One without being killed.
The Holders go quiet, leaving his head blissfully quiet.
Finally.
Izuku laces his fingers together, focusing back on the two hundred year old, multi-Quirked man mere feet away from him.
"...Hisayoshi. How are things?"
All For One stares at the boy on the couch.
A young, healthy version of his brother stares back.
It's all there. The bright white hair, the bandages, the eyes. God, the eyes.
They're the exact same shade of green Yoichi's were.
For the first time, he wishes he hadn't stumbled upon that external sight Quirk six years ago. It would be better for his sanity if he wasn't aware of Nine's uncanny resemblance to someone who died decades ago.
He can practically hear his brother's laughter from beyond the grave when his name—his real name, not the pseudonym that he'd used to garner respect and fear alike over the years—slips from the boy's lips, along with a question.
Unfortunately, as bitter as the irony is, the boy on the couch is not his brother. He is the Ninth Holder of his brother's Quirk. Though, something about Nine is...different. Aside from the obvious new developments of One For All and his possession of information All For One had done his damned best to wipe from the face of the Earth years ago, something about the child...
Maybe senility is finally catching up to me.
That can't be the case. He'd made copies of the longevity Quirks and had studied them extensively, along with the good Doctor. There had been no signs of changes of mental state over long amounts of time on the test subjects.
Well, I suppose there's only one way to figure it out.
Dabi watches as Kurogiri sets down a tray with fresh tea, mist flickering in a way that he's come to recognize as unease and confusion. He can't blame the man. No one had expected...whatever the hell this interaction is.
One moment, he'd been asking the pipsqueak about his weird ass Quirk, the next he instinctively jumped away from the white haired boy right before literal see-through people started cussing out at Crusty's boss. Then Izuku used tentacles again and told them to leave and they just...disappeared, along with any signs of Quirk usage at all aside from faint wisps of black curling around the boy's crooked hands.
Now they're all sitting in complete silence, watching as Izuku stirs honey into his tea and Crusty's boss just...stares at him? Dabi isn't sure that's possible for someone with no eyes, and looking too closely at the man sends alarm bells off in his head. So he just sits awkwardly on the side of the couch, not daring to break the weird atmosphere.
Even Crusty feels it, and keeps looking in between the two people from his spot on an armchair, though he doesn't break the silence either.
The burned man shifts, eyes flickering from the orange and black kitten wobbling across Izuku's shoulders to the orange and white cat sitting on Crusty's boss's lap. He'd seen them interacting—mostly the older one terrorizing the younger, but the kitten was skittish around humans, and the older one had an air of disdain around it the moment someone even dared to look at it—so he was pretty surprised when the kitten had appeared out of the mass of white curls that is Izuku's hair.
Hold on...
"Tomura told me about what you did."
Izuku tenses at the sound of the man's voice, fingers tightening around the mug. Fear is a powerful emotion, and the past Holders had plenty for the person who'd hunted them down for most of their adult lives. But he knows his own fear, and theirs is not his. It doesn't feel the same, doesn't make him want to react the same way.
"I'm surprised you bothered to help, considering who your mentor is. I would've thought he'd keep a tighter leash on you." All For One continues, a large hand resting on the cat in his lap.
He twitches.
"...They asked me for help. My mentor has no say in my decisions, seeing as I do possess free will."
A faint thread of amusement runs through him, foregin and not quite his. The man in the wheelchair's lips curl upwards, and he shifts, resisting the urge to activate One For All and get the hell out of here.
"Really? The last time we spoke, that didn't seem to be the case." All For One says, amusement dripping from his sharp words.
The white haired boy tightens his grip on his cup at the mention of their last conversations, wishing that he'd been more awake and conscious of his decision to info dump someone he'd never even met before. Still, he somewhat envies the person he was then, when his image of his idol hadn't been irreparably shattered.
And let All Might keep taking advantage of you?
He frowns at the thought.
"Things have changed since then."
All For One grins, a gleeful look that makes the respirator on his mouth shift and sends a shudder down Izuku's spine.
"Oh? Do tell me more, I'd love to know how that blonde dolt reacted when you found out about our fight."
"I don't see how that's any of your business." He retorts cooly, silently regretting the slip. All For One took to conflict like a shark to blood, and hearing that the Eighth and the Ninth were in disagreement must've been like music to his ears.
The man shifts in his chair, glee fading into a simmering amusement that sends several of the Holders shouting rather creative threats from the void. If he wasn't pissed at them, he might've congratulated them. Then again, being isolated from the world for two centuries with the same people probably left them a lot of time to think.
Silence stretches out, and the atmosphere gets more tense with every passing second.
The kitten in his lap squirms, bumping its head against his forearm. He blinks, then releases his grip on the cup and reaches down, gently petting it. It might be more relaxing if he wasn't mere feet away from someone who'd ruined people's lives for two centuries.
"I've suspected the thieves hadn't actually died for a while. When they came to die, each always lasted just a bit longer than the last one. At first, I thought it might be some sort of ingrained reflex memory—but seeing as several of them just jumped out and tried to kill me a few minutes ago, it's much more than that." All For One speaks up, amusement dropping into something more intense and serious.
The white haired boy pauses.
Whether or not he knows about One For All mutating, confirming anything would give him an advantage information-wise.
That wouldn't be good, especially considering that the government had a case file on All For One that read 'kill on sight'. All Might had gotten lucky in the respect that he had enough influence(and information from Nana's research) to add to that file. Their fight was documented there as well, though his former mentor's injuries were severely downplayed.
If someone with a near similar Quirk to All For One was discovered, it would most certainly get him arrested, if not killed. His death would be silenced before he even got the chance to think of an excuse, and he'd probably be filed as one of Japan's many missing person's cases.
Of course, it would be unlikely for the government to believe All For One himself, but if an anonymous tip was sent in, that would cause more than enough trouble for him. And Eri...
His papers may read Quirkless, but even the x-ray of his foot wouldn't be able to convince anyone after he'd broken all of his fingers repeatedly on national television. She would, without a doubt, be taken away and sent into the foster care system, which is notoriously flawed.
"I'd like to remind you of your current position, Izuku. You've been enjoying your time with Tomura, have you not?" All For One's tone is airy as he leans forwards slightly, a smile on his face. "All I'm asking is for a little Quirk discussion."
Cold calm creeps through his body as he carefully—so, so carefully, because he doesn't want to pick glass out of his hand—sets his cup down on the table in front of him. Black smoke curls around his fingers, and he sits up, pulling his hand away from the kitten in his lap as he finally looks at All For One.
"To be completely honest," He laces his fingers together, a pleasant smile creeping across his face. "I could kill you right now."
Several people tense, their hands drifting towards their weapons as the smile on All For One's face drops and the tension intensifies to an uncomfortable degree. Still, he keeps his cold smile in place, green eyes glowing in the dim room.
"But." Izuku tilts his head, watching as the edges of All For One's fingers blacken, just slightly. "I don't really see the point in continuing a grudge match I wasn't informed of."
Absolute silence.
"Of course, that doesn't mean I like you. You're not a good person, and I have no intention of being friendly with you. However, I think it would be mutually beneficial to ignore each other's existence. Don't you agree?" He asks, leaning back into the couch as he speaks to the man in the wheelchair, who has yet to make a move.
Once again, nothing but silence, though Kurogiri's mist is so pale that it's closer to lavender than it's usual midnight purple. Shigaraki keeps looking in between them, eyes wide and mouth gaping, but entirely silent. None of the other League members seem to realize the person he's talking to is a villain who's been around since the Dawn of Quirks, but they seem to be aware(at least on some level) that he's not supposed to speak to the All For One like that.
The furry creature on the supervillain's lap slips off and lands on the floor, tail held high as it walks around the coffee table in a stately fashion. It daintily walks over Dabi and Spinner's outstretched feet, but stops at his, looking up at him with the same amber eyes as Jiji.
He blinks. The cat blinks back, then leaps up onto the couch, nails digging into his thigh as it stablizes itself, then walks forwards, butting its head against his hands. It ignores the kitten in his lap, wedging itself in despite the squeaky protests from the smaller animal.
She probably just wants scratches.
Carefully, he extracts Jiji from the situation, making sure to give Azuki a scratch behind her right ear to distract her. She starts purring, and his lips twitch.
She's really cute.
Hold on.
How did I know that?