After the flash, Midoriya escaped with Kurogiri back to the safety of the bar. Midoriya stumbled out of the portal and collapsed into one of the booths, still slightly blinded himself by the flash grenade that Kurogiri had thrown between him and Todoroki.

When his vision had cleared, Midoriya looked up at Kurogiri apologetically for not being back on time, and felt that the man was owed an explanation. Considering what he perceived as a threat to Midoriya's safety, he could at least tell Kurogiri what happened.

Almost as if reading his mind, Kurogiri sat down opposite him in the booth and waited patiently for Midoriya to start talking. Midoriya took a deep breath, and told Kurogiri everything. From the posters, to the fact that he missed his mother and wished he could go and visit her, the walk to the park and the bench (including telling him the significance of that bench to him), the mysterious Todoroki that appeared out of nowhere and froze his feet to the ground to stop him running away from him, how he recognized Midoriya as the missing kid and tried to pry where he disappeared to out of him and finally how Kurogiri appeared just in time to save him.

By the time he was done, Midoriya was completely out of breath, having gone through almost that entire explanation without pausing to refill his lungs with air. Meanwhile, Kurogiri pondered whether this Todoroki person would become a problem down the road, and if he needed to be eliminated. He put that in the back of his mind for the moment and finally spoke to Midoriya.

"Midoriya, I'll have a talk with the master about letting you go home to visit your family. Speaking of master, you're going to see him in a couple of days. He has a surprise for you."

Midoriya perked up at this, realizing that he will finally get to meet this master that Kurogiri and Shigaraki have been referring to for weeks and that he had a surprise for him. This got Midoriya quite excited about this. And also, Kurogiri was going to try and get him permission to go home. "Thank you, Kurogiri" he said, bowing his head in thanks.

"There is no need for thanks, Midoriya. Remember, you are a villain, and villains do not need to thank people" Kurogiri replied. "Now, get to bed."

Midoriya nodded his head and ran out the door and hurried upstairs to get back into bed as Kurogiri went off to clean his bar again.

The next two days went by in a flash for Midoriya, who spent the the entire time working on his training with the bar's other occupants. And, before he knew it, the time had come to go and see this master that Kurogiri and Shigaraki had been talking about for weeks. He got himself ready to go and made his way downstairs to the bar where Kurogiri was waiting for him. He gave a slight nod to the man to make him aware that he was ready and Kurogiri opened up a portal leading straight to where the master was.

Midoriya stepped through the portal, closely followed by Kurogiri and they came out to a place that Midoriya didn't really expect the puppet master behind the villains to be hiding out, but it was so unthinkable that it was genius on the master's part. The thing Midoriya did not expect to see at all though, was what the master looked like.

As he looked at this man, if you could even call him that anymore, he noticed that he had almost no facial features at all. In fact, all that covered the upper half of his face and the top of his head, were scars. The man had no eyes, ears, nose or even hair. There were also many tubes sticking out of his neck as if they were the only thing keeping him alive. If Midoriya had come across this man a month or so ago, he would have ran screaming in terror. Even though Kurogiri had also been helping him become less of a scared little child, he still at that moment wanted to run away screaming in terror. The man looked like something you would see chasing the protagonist of a horror film, or one of those circus freaks that were put on show for people to laugh at, like the elephant man.

Midoriya shuddered. He dreaded to think what must have happened to this man for him to become this monstrosity. But he didn't cower away, which surprised him. He was thankful to Kurogiri for that little bit of extra teaching to stop him being scared of everything that he felt threatened by.

After a few more minutes of pause, the man began to speak, "Izuku Midoriya. I've heard so much about you from Shigaraki and Kurogiri." His voice was raspy and gravelled, as if it had been ground into a wall or something. "Come forward, I have something for you."

Midoriya hesitated, then stepped towards the man until he was only a foot or so away, then stood completely still again. For someone who was hooked up to life support and had little to no face, still came across as incredibly intimidating.

After another moment, the man began to reach forward and, instinctively, Midoriya recoiled away from him. The man stopped his advancement and lowered his arm slightly. "I promise you this won't hurt at all, as long as you're body accepts what I'm going to give you that is" the man told him.

Midoriya, finally plucking up the courage to say something, asked "And what might that be, sir?"

"A quirk" the man replied. "You see Midoriya, my name is one I share with my quirk. All for One. It allows me to take other people's quirks and use them for myself, but it also allows me to give other people those quirks as well. Take, for example, the one I'm about to give to you, Metal Manipulation. This will allow you to control anything metallic. Do you understand?"

Midoriya was in shock, frozen in place, staring at All for One with an unbelieving expression. He was getting a quirk, a real quirk. What was once just a silly dream, was now becoming a reality, and it was all thanks to All for One. He didn't say anything for a few minutes, for fear that he would either say something he may regret or burst out into tears. After he gathered himself, he glanced towards Kurogiri and then back to All for One. "I understand, sir. I'll try my best to handle the quirk you give me."

"That's what I like to hear, someone with guts." All for One said, laughing. Or, at least, it sounded like he was laughing. He beckoned Midoriya towards him again and this time, when he went to touch Midoriya, he didn't flinch or jump back.

All for One placed his hand on Midoriya's head and it began to glow red. Midoriya felt the surging of something shooting from All for One's hand and into his head, flowing freely through his body. After a few seconds, he began to feel it, his head began to grow immensely hot and pain began to rack all throughout his body. He collapsed to the floor, screaming and writhing around. After a moment he lay still, convulsing slightly every now and then.

"It doesn't look like his body accepted the quirk" All for One said, a hint of what could be perceived as sympathy coming from his voice.

But Midoriya, miraculously, shot up into a sitting position and began gasping for breath. All for One couldn't believe it, someone had managed to fight for the quirk, and win. In all his years, even the strongest willed could not make the quirks he gave them theirs. But this child, who believed with all of his being that he could hold this quirk, managed to come out relatively unscathed.

He quickly motioned for Kurogiri to come to Midoriya's aid and help him back to his feet. All for One cleared his throat. "Well, that was certainly, unexpected. Congratulations Midoriya, you now own a quirk. But we have more business to attend to before you go" he said.

Midoriya looked at him, confused. There was more? He gave a short nod to All for One to let the man know that he was listening, so All for One continued.

"Midoriya, I think it's time that you went home."

Okay, that's Chapter 7 finished. I assure everyone that Midoriya will get to do villain stuff soon. I just want to build this up as much as possible. I have some big plans for this story now. I have a whole 6 page Word document with notes for this story, so if I have to stop updating for a while, I won't lose my place like I did last time.

Next time - Home

Be back soon