A/N: Still don't own MHA.
Omnipotent X: I think I added that. But perhaps I missed it.
"Any progress?" Detective Tsukauchi asked as he walked into the lab.
The scientist with three antennae protruding from his head looked up from his microscope for half a moment, then hunched back over to look through the lenses.
"Not quite yet. I have the machine running the samples against the samples we collected from the lookalikes. It'll probably be a while before it's done, though."
Tsukauchi nodded and walked into the adjoining office for a cup of coffee and returned to the scientist.
"I still can't believe someone so young would do that," the detective muttered as he recalled being notified of a flood of phone calls reporting a suicide.
"C'mon, you know the rules," the man sighed when he noticed the mug. His left antenna twitched, telegraphing his annoyance at the disregard of simple protocol.
"Oh, sorry," Tsukauchi offered and quickly scurried back into the office, lest he spill coffee over the instruments.
"But yes, I agree." The scientist finally emerged from the microscope and joined Tsukauchi in the office room. "To push someone so young like that. I can only imagine what his friends and family are going through."
For the next two minutes, both men were silent. The only noise that broke the silence was the occasional sip from the mugs.
A soft peeping noise came from a laptop near where the scientist had been working. The two mugs were carefully placed onto the counter before the men went to read the notification.
"We have a match. The DNA perfectly matches a kid named Izuku Midoriya."
It had been over an hour since then. An hour of trying to steel his nerves. An hour of trying to figure out how to tell this woman that her son was dead. An hour of nothing but unease and nausea.
He had already been standing outside her door for three minutes. No matter how many times he tried, he just couldn't bring himself to knock. He had to at some point, but every time he just told himself, "just a few seconds. Then I'll be ready."
He was dragged out of his thoughts by the clacking of a turning doorknob in front of him. He straightened himself out and prepared to come face to face with the unluckiest woman he knew.
"Oh, Detective Tsukauchi! Hello. Did you need something?"
She sounded hopeful, but looked exhausted to the core. But of course she did; who knew how many times a day she told herself someone would stop by to tell her Izuku wasn't dead, just staying at a stranger's place or a hotel after getting a bit too roughed up by those hoodlums he called 'friends'.
"Uh, I...I did, actually. You're going to need to sit down."
"I am sorry, Mrs. Midoriya. I can't bring myself to imagine what you're feeling."
The response he got was the same he'd gotten for the last five minutes; hopeless wailing. It had started the moment he gave her the truth she never wanted to hear and hadn't stopped since.
"But-but-but, he was always so lively! He was sad at times, but I never got the feeling it was this bad! What did I do wrong?" Her cries rang in his ears.
"I wish I knew. Sometimes, people get so used to wearing a mask around others that even they forget it's a mask. But once it's too late, there's nothing that can be done."
His phone rang in his pocket. Not a great time, but duty called. He pulled it out and answered.
"Uh-huh, I see. Okay, if it's that important, I'll be there as soon as I can." He hung up, returned the phone to his pocket, and stood to leave.
"I know this doesn't do you any good, but I am terribly sorry for your loss. If there's anything you need, fell free to call." A business card was produced from his robe, which Inko slowly took and placed on the coffee table.
"Goodbye, Mrs. Midoriya."
Detective Tsukauchi opened the door and walked outside into the beautiful, sunny day.
Mother Nature, it seemed, had a sick sense of humor today.
"You are getting stronger. Last week, you couldn't even lift that. Now here you are, using that as a warm up." Nakamura grinned as he watched his pupil repeat up and down motions with the bar. The kid was still behind what most others his age could achieve, but he was quickly closing the gap.
"Thank you, but I assume you have something to do with that?" Rin asked once he finished the set and lowered the bar onto the rack.
"You're a smart one. My quirk, Recovering Aura, drastically decreases the time it takes for one's body to repair damage done by working out. You may have noticed you felt little to no soreness when you woke up the morning after your first session, despite never pushing yourself that hard," the man explained, which Rin stored in his head for later.
"Yeah, I found that weird. I just felt tired. Like, a regular tired. But if it speeds up recovery, does it diminish the gain from rebuilding damaged muscles? Or is it still the same?"
"It is still the same. Now, hurry up and get running before I make you," Nakamura ordered, to which Rin quickly ran over to a treadmill and set it on a medium setting.
Truthfully, he liked the kid. He didn't necessarily have the strongest drive when it came to physical workouts like others he had seen, but he had enough to get through the exercises with energy to spare. But what really caught his attention was the kid's behavior. He was as curious as one could be, but he reigned in his questions for appropriate times instead of blurting them all out at once. It was an odd quirk (no pun intended) of his, but that's what made him who he was.
Half an hour later, Rin turned off the treadmill and dropped onto the floor. Sweat beaded from his forehead and trickled down his skin until it collected on the floor.
"That's enough for today. Starting next time, we'll be starting the basics of fighting. No martial arts or anything, just stances and light punches."
"Thank you, Nakamura. If I may, there's something I've been wondering."
Nakamura contemplated whether or not he should let the kid ask his question. It was a quick decision.
"Sure."
"Well, how did you come under Sensei's wing? I know Shigaraki will be his successor some day, I was taken in because he sensed something in me, and I assume Kurogiri was just too useful to let slip by, but what about you?"
Oh, he hadn't expected it to be this personal.
Still, the kid had a right to ask, and what harm could come from giving him a little backstory?
"It was a while ago. Maybe a decade and a half. See, my family and I were new in the area. We got lost near the bar, where we were jumped by a group of thugs. Normally, I could have taken them out by myself, but they all had quirks made for ranged combat. I remember one using some kind of eye laser to melt into the car, while another kept shouting that he would shoot us if we didn't do what he said."
Rin, who had unknowingly started holding his breath, awaited the continuation of the story.
"Then, something happened. I think two of them got into an argument. One of them wanted to kill us on the spot, loot our bodies, and drive off. The other thought it would be better to take us for ransom. Soon enough, the entire gang was at each other's throats. One of the more powerful members went to attack their buddy, but missed and hit our car. we were thrown back a distance, and when I went to check on my wife and child, both were covered in large cuts from the glass shards. That's when he appeared. Master settled the fight by taking all of their quirks and letting them run away like the scared little dogs they had become. I passed out, but awoke in the alley streets next to my family. The car was gone, but he was standing in front of me. Before I could even ask any questions, he told me that my wife and child were alive and well. The car had been towed to a nearby body shop with all costs covered. I asked him why, and he simply responded, 'It is good to have a few favors for down the road,' before he just disappeared."
"So, I was the favor? I mean, teaching me? Was that what he called in that favor for?"
"Not quite. Shigaraki was actually the first one I trained. But it lasted only a few months. He wouldn't stop talking in video game terms and destroyed everything he touched. Literally, by the way, and just didn't like these little sessions. One day, he just stopped showing up. So I figured I would eventually get a new student. Nearly a year later, I was proven correct. Master called me out of the blue and told me I had a new student on the way, then hung up. Not even a week later, you show up."
Rin silently digested the man's past. It was nearly a tragedy, but his Sensei had been there when the heroes had not. Of course, even with the number of heroes patrolling the streets, it was impossible to cover every street and alley. Especially in the rundown areas.
In a way, it was yet another eye opener for Rin.
"He's... dead?"
Katsuki Bakugo barely had the air in him to mutter the two words. The news had knocked the wind out of him, both metaphorically and physically.
"Yes, Katsuki. Inko said he jumped earlier this week. The body disappeared, but witness reports tell of a body broken beyond hope of life," Mitsuki answered, trying her best to maintain her composure. Her son's flinch did not go unnoticed, and raised a big red flag.
"Do you know why he would do that? You were his friend, weren't you?"
"Why would I care? I haven't spoken to the nerd in years," the blonde sneered before stomping off to his room, leaving his mother in shock.
Once he closed his bedroom door, he grabbed his pillow and screamed into it. This wasn't supposed to happen; things weren't supposed to got his far.
Bakugo could admit there was a lot he did not regret when it came to the treatment of his quirkless former friend. He prided himself in his ability to push Izuku around and get away with it. He took joy in seeing the loser's face tear up everyday under the barrage of insults.
But the one thing he truly regretted was that stupid remark. It took an hour for the realization to set in, but came full force once it did. He had unashamedly baited suicide, which now became incitement of suicide. And there was no way to undo it at all.
It hurt so much more than he thought it would. He had expected joy and relief upon finding out Deku would no longer be part of his life. But all he felt was shame and anger.
He screamed into his pillow again, swearing to at least never tell someone to kill themselves again.
To add insult to injury, Inko moved in with the Bakugo family less than a week later. Mitsuki kept saying it was to keep an eye on the woman as much as possible, lest she rush to join the only family she had left. But Katsuki had this little nagging feeling that part of it was to guilt trip him into admitting whatever he knew about Izuku's death.
The funeral came and went, with only a closed casket to show for it. Aside from Inko and the Bakugo's, the only attendees were some of Inko's coworkers that Katsuki couldn't be less bothered to get to know.
After the casket was finally buried, Katsuki lingered just enough to whisper a short, "I'm sorry," before turning his back on the grave and returning home with his parents and Inko.
It was Masaru who pushed Inko into therapy half a month later. As someone who lost a parent in his teenage years, he knew the importance of being able to mourn and grieve. But he also know the necessity of having someone to talk to before allowing the voices and negativity to overwhelm and take over.
Slowly but surely, Inko came back to the world. She started making small talk at the dinner table and opened up to Mitsuki a few times every week. After doing some online research, the blonde woman made the executive decision to make gym visits a regular occurrence for her and her friend. Exercise was largely agreed to be an effective aid in battling depression, with the benefit of slimming Inko's figure over the course of a year.
Through it all, Katsuki was unnervingly polite to the woman. He had already liked her for being his honorary "Aunt Inko" beforehand, but seemingly went out of his way to watch his temper when speaking to her. His parents suspected he knew something about Izuku's death and tried to get answers out of him, but he never gave anything worthwhile.
He, his classmates, and much of the Aldera staff were questioned, but there had yet to be any sign of action against the school. Unbeknownst to him, he had used all of his luck for the week when Tsukauchi had one of his fellow investigators take over the day Katsuki was questioned. While the man who spoke to Katsuki had a quirk that made subjected individuals more likely to spill their secrets, it was not a foolproof quirk.
Had Tsukauchi not called out, his future as a hero would have ended dead in its tracks right then and there.
School went by in a blur, and the blonde spent more and more time preparing for UA's entrance exam.
Little did he know, a certain someone would cross his path.
It had been nearly a year since Rin had been taken under All For One's wing. Through that time, he had grown stronger and smarter under the guidance of Nakamura and Kennohbee. He had also been heavily trained in self-defense and offensive forms of combat under a woman who never gave him her name and learned less traditional yet surprisingly deadly methods of fighting with weapons like knives, chains, staffs, and handfuls of weapons in between.
It was during one of there lessons that Kurogiri appeared fifteen minutes earlier than scheduled.
"Rin, Master would like to see you."
The green haired teen nodded and walked through the portal, stepping into the large room his Sensei always sat in.
"You wished to see me?" he asked with a bow.
"Yes, I did. Remember how I told you I could give and take quirks as I desired, and that you would be able to earn one?"
Rin already knew where this was going and felt his heartrate spike. He hadn't realized it, but he had grown used to spending time around mentors who were not bothered in the slightest that he lacked a quirk. And despite the uneasy tension between him and Shigaraki, the two had an unspoken agreement to stay out of each other's way.
"Yes Sensei."
"Good. There is a large, underground cage fight on the other side of the city tonight. You will watch and, should one catch your eye, choose your next quirk."
Izuku was about to thank his Sensei, but the wording rang an alarm in his head. "Next? Wouldn't you mean 'first'?"
"Normally, yes. But when I first brought you here, the doctor and I made a few... adjustments to your body. You can physically handle multiple quirks, but it is better safe than sorry." As he spoke, he raised his hand and beckoned his pupil to come closer. Once in arms reach, he placed his hand on the boys head and lit up the air with red streaks that raced down his arm and into Rin's skin.
"Rin Arai, you know have a weaker variant of Super Regeneration. It is powerful, but more importantly, it adapts to the hosts needs. With this, your body will be even more capable of holding the quirks you want."
"Th-thank you, Sensei. I promise I'll use your gift wisely." All For One smiled a wicked smile and summoned Kurogiri.
"I would suggest you freshen up and disguise yourself before heading out. I can't afford to have Kurogiri send you to a heavily populated area, so you will have a long walk ahead of you."
"Thank you again, Sensei. You won't regret this," Rin offered before stepping back through Kurogiri's warp gate and into his room.
"He has progressed so much since he arrived. He hardly resembles the boy I met on that roof at all," the faceless man said into the dimly lit room.
"That he has, Master. That he has. But will it be enough?" Garaki asked from the computer set up across the room, gently caressing the exposed brain of a lapdog-sized creature that he held to his chest. The creature's eyes rolled around within the brain matter and occasionally shook its tail.
"I know it will. And in time, I think he will more than prove successful."
A/N: I know there's a bit of change in the style about half way through. That's where I got before I removed this story the first time. Still, I hope you enjoyed. Leave a review, and have a good day!