Captain Titus Invictus - I just lowkey hate for how time consuming publishing things is here, doing that for too many fics at once is a torture xD
bhp100505 - Let's just say that Izuku is going to cause a LOT of chaos throughout the fic.
LordDarkFluff - wow, wow, calm down Satan xD
(***)
To be honest, the next few days afterward were significantly calm, Re-Destro deciding to give Midoriya a brief time of respite, after… well.
Being dropped by his mother at the home of some completely unrelated group of people for, apparently, about a year. Which had to be quite a shock, even if Midoriya was clearly powering through it (and his personal anxiety) due to the hype of meeting at least two of his idols.
No, neither Curious nor Trumpet knew how to process that fact.
In the end, the Meta-Liberation Army managed to avoid collapsing into an unexpected civil war over Izuku Midoriya. Mostly thanks to Re-Destro announcing that they are going to share him.
As a result, Trumpet, Skeptic, and Curious were going to get him as an unofficial intern, for a week each. Then, naturally, Re-Destro was going to have him as his second personal assistant for a week.
To fill the timetable for a whole month, naturally. No other reason in it other than fairness, yes.
The trio ended up playing a small tournament of rock, paper, scissors over who goes first. Truly a way of solving the organizational dilemma worthy of an ancient conspiracy, Re-Destro decides, before sighing loudly.
He has a bad feeling about the month to come.
(***)
Curious, in the end, wins.
As a result, she obtains Izuku Midoriya for a week, the kid following her around, seeing ins and outs of working as a major, established journalist.
Two days in, Chitose Kizuki realizes that he is a walking database of heroes-related information, that also could dig information like no one else. And, apparently, had suspiciously well informed uncles.
Who the hell were those 'uncle Sako', 'uncle Oguro', 'auntie Tsutsumi', and ''uncle Akaguro'? Curious couldn't help but wonder.
Tsutsumi being the surname of Lady Nagant - long dead after Overclock cornered her years ago, not long after her massacre of the HPSC leadership - crossed her mind. She wrote about her, after all, doing her best to expose the HPSC's dirty laundry to undermine the Hero Society.
But she was completely dead, so it didn't matter.
She noticed Midoriya looking uncomfortable when she asked about his uncles and aunties, and while her curiosity was overbearing, she - surprising herself - decided to leave it for a future date.
The fact his mother was Mischief and his father was some horrible unnamed supervillain contributed to the decision. She could smell a delicious scoop in it from orbit, but even if she satisfied her curiosity, she'd probably be forced to stay quiet about it for security reasons.
Besides, Izuku will certainly open up to her, eventually. Right?
Izuku Midoriya is such a perfect assistant that Chitose Kizuki ends up deciding that having him accompany her while she makes an interview with Endeavor, present Number Two Hero, is a good idea.
And oh boy, if she wasn't horribly right about it.
Most of the interview was pretty normal. It was going live, Curious being influential enough to have her personal program in one of the associated TV stations. Curious asked about a lot of mostly inconsequential things.
She was, let's say, constructively aggressive, asking Endeavor about certain elements of his hero work (like collateral damage, although even she had to admit that for his quirk and its firepower, he was keeping it surprisingly low).
She really liked that studio because, to be honest, it completely didn't look like a studio. Even the cameras were hidden, giving it a rather homely feel.
Izuku was actually there, although she introduced him as Akatani Mikumo, her assistant. He was under a rather heavy quirk disguise (just in case his father was around or watching, she isn't stupid).
Different hair color, completely different hairstyle, freckles gone, slightly reshaped facial features, added height. Midoriya could barely recognize himself in a mirror.
She didn't tell him that they were going live. Or that they were even recorded. It was just a little prank of hers, she was looking forward to his reaction to Akatani Mikumo seeing himself on TV.
If she had a bet with some of her other co-workers on whether he was going to faint afterward or not, well, who cares, right?
He is mostly there to help her sort out the documents she was using to pull numbers on Endeavor about his collateral damage thing, because she can't exactly remember everything in perfect detail.
They are about to wrap the interview up, when Curious has an idea.
"So, now that we're pretty much done with the interview, I have something to ask you." She says to Endeavor. "Are you willing to answer a single question from my assistant? I can see him being pretty anxious up there, and he really can't stop fanboying over heroes."
It was, to put it mildly, slightly irritating, but hey. The MLA wasn't going to dismantle the heroics completely, just reform it deeply. And, well, Curious wants free meta-ability usage because meta-abilities are awesome, and guess what? Heroes have a lot of cool meta-abilities.
She can tolerate it. Somewhat.
"Very well." Endeavor replies, with the standard slightly intimidating frown on his face. Curious can see Izuku's face lighting up.
"I can ask him a question? Really?" Izuku says while beaming at Curious, and his smile is still lethal even on a different face. Curious nods with a smile on her own. "Any question I want?"
"Yes, yes you can." Kizuki replies. Who would say no to such an adorable face? Besides, what exactly can he ask Endeavor about?
"Alright!" Izuku smiles at her, before looking at the Number Two Hero. "Endeavor-san, are you abusing your family?"
…
oh god he doesn't know they are going live
MISTAKES WERE MADE, MISTAKES WERE MADE
Curious opens her mouth, expression of total shock on her face, trying to conjure some words that are going to somehow fix the clusterfuck she invited herself into (why the hell did Izuku think that this was even an option), but Endeavor speaks first.
"I suggest…" Endeavor says, glaring at Izuku angrily. "... minding your words. Slander of this magnitude is…"
"What slander?" Izuku completely ignores the Japanese laws that (and yes, Curious tripped on this once and twice) actually allow Endeavor to prosecute him. Even if he was right and actually had evidence, but now that Curious thinks about it, SHE DIDN'T TELL HIM ABOUT IT. "I just asked a question. I saw your son's performance at the sports festival, and it was actually rather worrying."
"There is nothing to worry about." Endeavor makes the biggest mistake possible by actually participating in the talk. "Shoto is going to become a Number One Hero to surpass All Might, and…"
"Well, yes, but why isn't he using the flame side of his quirk?" Izuku cuts in, completely unmoved by facing the NUMBER TWO HERO HIMSELF. "He would have won the festival if he did, however, he clearly refrains from using it. In fact, seeing as it's clear to me that his quirk is focused on the temperature equilibrium, meaning that he needs to use his flame side after using his cold side to avoid frostbite and hypothermia. He doesn't do that at all."
"My Shoto, like most teenagers, tends to rebel." Endeavor downplays the situation. Curious really feels like she should intervene to stop herself from being sued, but c'mon, she'll just borrow money from Re-Destro to pay for it, not her first time either. She's actually curious to hear where it's all going. "It's irrelevant and…"
"Yes, but he rebels against you." Izuku, once again, is as fearless as possible, to Curious' surprise. "However, he sees no issue using the ice part of his quirk, despite your wife being committed by you to a mental hospital after using boiling water to scar half of his face. Don't you think that this is a rather strange type of teenage rebellion?"
"This interview is over." Endeavor stands up, glaring at Curious for a change. "We'll see each other in a cou…"
"Then what about your oldest son Touya and Dabi, the infamous Arch-Arsonist responsible for up to one hundred deaths of villains, civilians, and heroes alike?" Midoriya decides to press his advantage.
Endeavor actually freezes in surprise over the words, staring at Midoriya over the table.
"What about them?" Endeavor asks, clearly still trying to wrap his head around… this, the words clearly coming out of the blue.
"Aren't they the same person?" Izuku asks, his voice clearly betraying that he thinks that this is obvious.
To be honest, he has the advantage of actually running into Touya Todoroki (right before his Arch-Arsonist debut) on the internet, on a forum dedicated to hero 'skeptics', the man somehow unloading his traumatic backstory on the user SmallMight2167, mostly due to not thinking clearly due to pain back then and SmallMight2167 daring to claim that Endeavor was a good hero after all.
Unloading your supervillain traumatic backstory on a 12 year old hero fanboy met on the internet because they said that Endeavor isn't that bad - and then promptly forgetting about it, because the painkillers and sedatives hit in - was a very Dabi thing to do.
Izuku didn't believe him back then, but afterward he did some investigating on his own and it actually sounded believable. Then, seeing Shoto Todoroki made things click in his mind finally.
"Touya is dead." Endeavor replies calmly. "His death was a tragic accident, and I won't stand for you badmouthing…"
"Evidence one, Dabi appeared as a villain around a year after Touya's death, appearing out of nowhere, his civilian identity still unknown." Midoriya says. "We don't even have any DNA samples to compare with anyone, because Dabi is clearly extremely cautious about not leaving any. That alone implies that his real identity is that of someone who is either in the police database or is closely related to someone who is."
"That's circumstantial evidence and guesswork, you can't be ser…" Endeavor tries to shout back.
"Evidence two, Dabi's injuries are clearly self-inflicted and caused by his own flames." Midoriya cuts in. "This is entirely in line with the fact Touya Todoroki, before his death, was diagnosed with a serious case of a quirk defect, his flames being much too strong for his own inborn fire resistance. Resulting in repeated self-burns."
Endeavor opens his mouth, but no words leave it.
"Evidence three is genetic." Izuku continues, completely ignoring the growing expression of existential horror on Endeavor's face. "It's clear from his fight against the pro-hero Iceberg that he is much more resistant to frost than a human being should, even without warming himself with his flames. This implies Dabi has improved inborn frost resistance, which he had to inherit from one of his parents. There is also a large chance of one of his parents having a powerful fire quirk, since he had to get his own from somewhere. This fits your family perfectly, as you have one of the strongest known fire quirks while your wife has a powerful ice quirk."
Curious is left to idly wondering what an incredible power Midoriya had hidden under the anxiety. That, clearly, evaporated when he got to talk about quirks. Or heroes. Or heroic quirks. Or, well, whatever the hell Curious was just witnessing.
"Evidence four is about his techniques." Midoriya continues. "He does his best to not use anything resembling yours, I give him that. But after I looked into it deeper, I realized that a lot of his techniques are vaguely similar to your own, but not your present ones. Rather, they resemble your fighting style from around fifteen years ago, which fits the chronology as those are the techniques that Touya trained."
Endeavor, naturally, would have noticed the similarities. He is an expert hero, for all his faults. But…
"However, there is one big change that obfuscates the similarity." Midoriya continues. "Dabi shapes his flames to spend as little time in contact with his body as possible before being sent after his enemies, which makes his techniques appear outwardly different from yours. But when I took that into account, the similarity was absolutely astounding!"
Curious is a journalist, yes. But she is also a supervillain in hiding. She has a reasonable degree of combat skills and experience. Oh, Top Heroes would have crushed her completely in a 1on1 scenario (she's no Geten or Re-Destro), but… she has her own skills.
And now that she replays the recording of one of the Dabi's mass murders with what Izuku just said in mind… wait, it actually looks awfully similar, isn't it?
"And, well, there is also evidence five, which is mostly about the fact that you didn't exactly find Touya's body." Midoriya continues. "Just some completely sterilized part of a body that was impossible to identify. But the thing is, I checked the subject and it turned out that years before Touya's death, some teenager that disappeared while hiking on Sekoto Peak. It's entirely possible that the bones the police found were actually his, since there wasn't anything to identify the body with."
Silence. Izuku finished his lecture and looked at Endeavor, only to realize that his flame mustache and beard were gone, the man staring at him over the table (still standing, his hands on the table), with the expression of most intense existential horror that Izuku ever saw on a human face.
Also, Enji Todoroki was pale like a corpse. For a few seconds, Curious actually freaked out that Izuku ended up giving the man a heart attack. But no, Endeavor is still alive.
The man proves it by straightening his back, taking a deep breath, and then immediately running through the door shouting at Burnin (who accompanied her boss to the TV Station) to call the police officer in charge of investigating Touya's death, RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
"Oh." Izuku blinks at the now open door. Then he glances at Curious. "D-did I go too far?"
"A little." Curious admits, trying NOT to explode into laughter. "Also I forgot to mention this, but we were and still are on live TV. Congratulations."
Izuku blinks at her in shock. Then, when he realizes what he did, he faints.
(***)
The result is a chaos that no one involved expected, and Re-Destro accidentally ruining one of his best suits (he was preparing for a business meeting, watching Curious' interview, only to accidentally dump a glass full of coffee on himself when Izuku asked THAT question).
If there is one thing that's surprising, it's that Endeavor SOMEHOW manages to remain a hero, even if everyone expected him to drop into the second hundred in the popularity polls.
It was a combination of a few factors in play. Fuyumi Todoroki was a major one. She ended up getting interviewed by someone and describing her own outlook on what exactly happened, one that portrayed Endeavor as a bad father, but not exactly abusive.
From her point of view, Enji did his utmost to stop Touya from injuring himself by training his quirk (clearly unsuitable for heroics due to being prone to self-injury) despite being forbidden to multiple times.
Touya's apparent death ended up sending him and his wife on a downward spiral.
Endeavor pushed Shoto to train himself harder out of a sunken cost fallacy, a feeling that someone from the family NOT becoming a Number One Hero would make Touya's death completely meaningless.
Fuyumi admitted that he was forceful with training and that some of it resulted in bruises and cuts, but that it was, in the end, training. She made it clear that not even once did Endeavor to raise his hand on anyone in the family, aside from combat training with Shoto.
To be honest, she wasn't lying. Endeavor was obsessed with the Number One Hero seat, not a sadist or a man with anger issues that ended up unloading them on those close by. Not a big of redeeming factor, but it had to be stated to get a full picture.
She also mentioned her mother - that to this day he was actually reasonably close with and loving towards - having a mental breakdown and dumping boiling water on the part of Shoto's face that reminded her of Touya.
Her statement (and Shoto's refusal to speak to the press, one that Natsuo shared) ended up letting the whole tale be twisted as a catastrophic sequence of tragedies in a family, one that ended up dragging everyone down the slippery slope.
Dabi, accidentally, contributed by releasing a really demented recording full of screaming and threats of murder (not just of Endeavor, but also everyone connected to him AND that shit Akatani Mikumo for ruining his revenge). As a result, he was seen as the insane murderer that he was rather than Endeavor's victim.
Endeavor ended up releasing a public statement a week after his interview with Curious, admitting responsibility for neglectful and incompetent parenting that resulted in the birth of an S-Rank villain.
He claimed that he was going to go for therapy (hopefully with his family, if THEY were interested in it), and that according to a deal with Nedzu, Shoto Todoroki was going to be treated temporarily as a legal ward of the UA - once again, until Shoto himself decides that he wants to have anything to do with his biological father.
Curious ended up having a very busy few months, the event giving her absolutely brilliant propaganda ammunition to talk about the hierarchical position of the Hero System encouraging unhealthy levels of rivalry over the higher slots (that also gave you better monetary benefits thanks to advertisements and so on), not to mention pointing out how the peer pressure on Touya to become 'a hero like your father' contributed to his drive into self-injury.
And that people, even with powerful quirks, shouldn't be peer pressured into heroics when they don't want to have anything to do with it (while subtly suggesting that being allowed to use their quirks for other ends would be a very good idea).
At Curious suggestion, Izuku (as Akatani Mikumo) starts a blog titled Just One Question, taking advantage of the popularity he just earned to ramble about quirks and heroes. She tells him to clearly mark where he is serious and where not, because honestly, after what he did he could as well say that All Might is his biological father and people would believe him, no questions asked.
(***)
To be honest, the stunt Izuku pulled made Koku Hanabata slightly dread Izuku Midoriya's little 'internship' in the Hearts and Minds Party (naturally, under a different camouflage). In the end, though, the first day ends up surprisingly normal.
He is just one more assistant, roaming around the National Diet, making sure that everyone has the tea/coffee they need (plus whatever documents they are in need of having). While staring (stars in his eyes) at all the important people Koku meets and at how the politics are made away from the cameras.
Trumpet is keeping Izuku away from ANY cameras whatsoever. They learned the lesson.
"So, how's your first day?" Trumpet asks. They - together with one or two of Hearts and Minds Party parliamentarians - are idling around in one of the rooms in the Diet that the Party holds for themselves.
The others are MLA members too. They heard that Midoriya is a bit of a ward under Re-Destro and are acting accordingly. But to be honest, his enthusiasm, awe and ability to make the best tea they ever tasted are already buying their hearts.
"Very nice, sir!" Izuku replies loudly. Then he shrinks a little. "T-to be h-honest I was a little b-bit worried. A-about my, err…"
"Your quirklessness?" Trumpet asks. Izuku nods. "Well, to be fully honest with you, I'm kind of surprised by you being so much of a supporter of my party. We never really tried to reach out for quirkless voters, mostly because we don't really have anything to offer them when our program is involved."
To Trumpet, this is just an obvious fact of life. He's no Geten. He doesn't see quirkless as inherently 'lesser' people than the quirked (especially the strong quirked).
In his opinion, the difference between a person without meta-ability and one whose meta-ability is, say, the ability to pick the smell of their farts is rather academic from the point of view of society.
He just doesn't feel like he is bound to have an opinion on a social group composed mostly of the older generation of people, with slightly less than about 5% of the current youth being quirkless.
Most models imply that the quirkless will stop being born entirely in the next generation. There is barely an electorate to fight for. And they aren't his electorate and cannot be a part of it, being emotionally involved with them in any way would be akin to an agrarian party trying to appease the people living in big cities, there's just no real point in doing that.
They exist, they pay taxes, and they are bound by the same law as everyone else. Sure, Trumpet can imagine them being teased and sometimes insulted about their status, because to be honest, people are dumb, and those that stand out tend to have their life more complicated than those that conformed.
Trumpet himself stood out, with people around him acting as if his meta-ability made him some type of a mind-controller because apparently, that's how a lot of kids misinterpreted his meta-ability. Becoming a successful politician was his own little form of revenge.
"Well, I know, I know." Izuku sighs. "I think I j-just, errr, a lot of kids and teachers in my school thought that free usage of quirks is all fine, and, errr, I kind of feared that the Hearts and Minds Party is, err, kind of like them?" He half says, half asks at the end.
Alright. Trumpet is a veteran politician. He can read people and smell suspicious things in the distance. This is very, very sus. Judging from the looks that one of his party members gives him over Midoriya's head, he isn't the only one.
"Could you, please, elaborate on what the kids and teachers in your school did?" Trumpet asks, correcting his glasses and looking at Midoriya with an intensity that actually makes him waver a little.
To be honest, Koku Hanabata didn't expect to be served a shit sandwich of this magnitude and judging from two of his fellow parliamentarians almost choking on their tea in the process, he wasn't the only one.
By the end of the talk, Trumpet starts to suspect that Midoriya actually has a meta-ability. He fails to otherwise explain his innate ability to cause political and societal crises simply by existing.
Although he really needs to have a serious talk with Re-Destro about the Aldera Middle School. Preferably right now.
(***)
Trumpet almost gets a heart attack when Geten suddenly waltzes into the room, just as Trumpet is about to start a Very Serious Talk with Re-Destro, Midoriya (nervous, anxious, and trying to vanish from view) following Hanabata and probably thinking that he was in trouble.
Geten actually ended up vanishing completely for more than a week after Izuku casually told him that he could use clouds to power up his meta-ability. Skeptic tracked him after using meteorological satellites to notice the sudden disappearances of clouds in Deika's vicinity.
Re-Destro actually almost sent people after him (Geten didn't take a phone, or, well, he was probably too immersed in training his meta-ability to remember about recharging it) to tell him to stop being an idiot, or someone will send heroes to investigate what's happening to the clouds.
Almost, because right before he issued the orders, Geten suddenly shows up in the emergency meeting. Prompting Trumpet to freak out internally, because if he starts throwing quirkless slurs at Midoriya right now, it'll be…
"You!" Geten points at Midoriya.
"Geten-san!" Midoriya replies, actually looking enthusiastic about it. Because, yeah, a cool quirk in front of him and all that. "Did it work?"
"Geten, I think you should…" Trumpet tries to intervene.
"Yes, it did." Geten admits, before pointing at Midoriya accusatively again. "But this doesn't mean that I acknowledge…" He was about to say 'someone as quirkless and useless being right next to our great leader', but Midoriya, once again, didn't let him.
"I have another idea, Geten-san!" Midoriya says cheerfully. "Did you ever try making things that can act independently from your ice? Like an ice monster that fights on its own?"
Geten is cut short, staring at Midoriya in shock for a few seconds (honestly, so do Trumpet and Re-Destro) before regaining his ability to speak.
"Wait, why would that even work?" He asks, staring at Midoriya with an expression of utmost dumbfoundedness on his face.. "I can only manipulate ice consciously."
"Well, yes." Izuku admits. "But there is this very cool hero called Pixie-bob with a powerful earth manipulation quirk. She can actually make her famed 'magical beasts' with her quirks, they are like big animals made of earth that act according to her orders! if you could do the same thing, you could keep your enemies occupied with soldiers or wolves or something made of ice, while preparing your large scale attacks in peace!"
Geten opens his mouth to protest against this truly preposterous suggestion. Then he remembers the fact that his ice dragon that he uses to fly around in combat (doubles as ice storage AND looks intimidating as hell) actually does most of the flying on its own, doing that in a particularly dragon-like fashion, despite Geten only giving it the simplest of instructions.
Holy shit.
"I…" Geten opens his mouth again. "... gotta go. Test something."
"At least use doors…" Re-Destro comments from his side. Geten, naturally, exits the room through a window. "... this time."
The Grand Commander groans painfully and decides to make his men attach a 'Not Exit' sticker to every goddamn window in the MLA headquarters. Maybe, just maybe Geten will take note.
"Alright, let's ignore what just happened." He decides. MLA just got even stronger, so… nice? "What did you want to talk about, Trumpet?"
"Midoriya." Trumpet glances at Izuku, who suddenly trips back to being anxious as hell, no longer having a super cool quirk in front of him. "Tell him what you told me about Aldera MIddle School."
(***)
Geten is doing his best to be an asshole, but Midoriya just doesn't let him. Also, what exactly is Trumpet planning to say to Re-Destro about Aldera High School? What exactly might be happening there?