PasiveNox - well, it IS a grimdark fic, so it being grimdark is quite expected XD
(***)
The final step of the meeting is composed entirely of Midoriya establishing some measures of communication with Yaomomo. Midoriya needed a way to contact Counterfeit once Shoto Todoroki was successfully extracted from the most guarded place in the world. Sending Cloud to pick her up without prior notification might end… badly.
The survivors of USJ and the Training Camp tended to react badly to black clouds appearing out of nowhere. Even after so many years. Tsuyu Asui seemed to be the only unaffected, but mostly by the virtue of years as a member of the Paranormal Liberation Front. For its members, black clouds meant the arrival of the Vanguard Action Squad. So reinforcements and medevac.
"That… went better than expected." Midoriya announces after they return to the headquarters. Tokoyami is exiting the insides of his clothes, flooding onto the floor. It honestly looks like he was vomiting black sludge out of every hole in his clothes, the liquid forming into a pool right next to him. Fumikage Tokoyami is slowly emerging from it, gaining a few centimeters every second.
Even Tsuyu looks vaguely uncomfortable at the sight. Midoriya himself can only breathe with relief that Tokoyami kept himself on the safe side of his underwear.
He wouldn't come to the meeting without a plan. Almost getting stabbed by Tsuyu was a nice wake-up call. Tokoyami had no heartbeat and was a perfect shapeshifter. This opened many options.
Midoriya made two plans. If they were attacked, Tokoyami would shield him, while Quicksilver would go instantly for Yaoyorozu's throat. Knocking the biggest threat out at the start, while making the others fight without their commander - and probably too pissed off to fight smart.
The rest would, honestly, be rather straightforward. Jirou and Tagawa were dangerous, but they were A-Rank material at best. Tokoyami was a solid S-Rank, with a specialization in close quarters. Without Yaoyorozu there, the fight would be quick.
If Yaoyorozu made no indication of being interested in working together after the meeting, Quicksilver would go for her throat as well… though not before Tokoyami would become one with the shadows, sneak past the group (taking full advantage of his no heartbeat thing and the fact that having Jirou probably habituated Yaoyorozu into treating her as the main mean of detecting threats) and then skewer Tagawa and Jirou.
Tsuyu was there to serve as a symbol that Midoriya had access to former PLF assets that were thought lost by the world… and, in case Yaoyorozu switched from 'not wanting to work for you' to 'kill you' at the last second (once Tokoyami was no longer shielding Midoriya due to preparing his own sneak attack), to grab him with her tongue and throw him away from the bullets.
Midoriya was cautious. And an excellent tactician. So was Yaoyorozu, of course, but she didn't know Quicksilver's quirk and she couldn't know about Tokoyami being there. Even the best tactician could only factor things he knew about into their plans.
"We must admit that your body is surprisingly well-sculpted on a closer inspection." Blackwing announces. "You might be a strategist, but it seems that you don't want to get surprised by someone up c… what?" They look at Midoriya's face in confusion.
"... you know that this sounded like you were hitting on me, right?" Izuku asks. Tokoyami replies by cawing loudly. And in a very avian way. That's a very odd and decidedly inhuman form of laughter.
"We can no longer partake in the pleasures of flesh." Tokoyami announces once the laughter subsides. "Nor do we feel the need to. The closest thing we had to what you imply is having someone that we've bonded emotionally and intellectually with, enough to wish to spend the rest of our existence with. And we already have someone like that. Your body is in no danger from us."
Midoriya notes another tidbit of knowledge about the Ascending Path' Exalted for future reference. It might be useful. It certainly is interesting.
"So, found yourself a girlfriend… or a boyfriend, huh." Midoriya's giving him an appraising stare. "When are you going to introduce them to us?"
"It's a girlfriend, for as much as the Exalted can have a gender." They reply, feeling vaguely smug about it. "They are serving as an active hero, their kin unaware of their true nature. Judgment learned a lot from you."
Only the morally questionable bits, it seems. Then again, who doesn't have spies amongst the heroes cast the stone first.
"... I have questions, ribbit." Tsuyu reminds them of her existence. Midoriya quickly shakes his head.
"Not yet, we're going to have that talk once we gather everyone up together." Midoriya replies. "I want to have it done once and for all. You're free for the rest of the day. I'm going to have to deal with the Todoroki… issue." And boy if it isn't going to be a pain.
"Are we really planning to get Frostfire out of Tartarus?" Blackwing asks instead of leaving. Midoriya looks at them questioningly, so they decide to elaborate. "We do remember him fondly from our time at the UA, however we cannot help but be worried about the darkness that overtook his heart later on."
Tsuyu clearly decided to stay behind as well, to listen to his answer. At least Quicksilver left as ordered.
It was… peculiar. The least human out of them was the only one bringing such an issue to the light. Aiko would have a field day over this.
"Getting cold feet about the war that's coming, Fumi?" Midoriya asks. The shadow shrugs.
"Do not misunderstand." Fumikage replies, their joint voice as unnerving as ever. "Once our apotheosis was complete, our interest in the lives of mortals dwindled. We only care about the individuals, mostly those like you that we knew and respected beforehand. And even that connection to the world will fade in time. Our question was motivated not by the risk of unrelated people dying in a crossfire, but our doubts whether you can control someone that we remember as a rabid animal."
That was a very good way of describing Shoto Todoroki at the end of his rather questionable 'career'. Who would have thought that the emotionless kid that Midoriya met back there had that in him? Then again, it was always the quiet ones.
"I'll be honest with you, Fumikage." Midoriya replies. "I don't know the answer to that question."
Tsuyu says nothing. Instead, she observes and listens. But she seems to have been slightly surprised by that as well.
"Really?" Tokoyami clearly fell into the trap of thinking that Midoriya had absolutely everything planned out in perfect detail. He was a very good planner, but he didn't have a precognition quirk to foresee all complications that could show up.
He knew better than to get too attached to the plan. Certain parts had to be improvised or modified as the situation changed, simple as that.
"The original role that I needed him for can as well be played by Apocrypha." Midoriya replies. "She is most likely way more stable than he is, while similar in terms of firepower. I simply didn't expect her to join us when I was making the plan. But we still need to get him out of Tartarus to get Yaoyorozu and Hatsume onboard." And the plan will probably not work without them.
"We have a strange feeling…" Tokoyami says, eyeing Midoriya curiously. "... that he is expendable."
You all are.
"That depends entirely on how controllable he turns out to be." Midoriya says. Painfully aware of the inquisitive stare that Tsuyu was giving him. "On whether I can trust him to only burn the things I tell him to burn. On whether I can trust him to not set us on fire instead."
"I don't like that, ribbit." Tsuyu finally decides to speak. "A traitor once, a traitor always." Tokoyami's eyes drift to her.
"Isn't that…" They say. "... a bit hypocritical coming from you?" Tsuyu's gaze sharpens, her mouth opens. Before she manages to start a fight, Midoriya cuts in.
"It's not." He says, sighing loudly when suddenly both eyes are on him again. "When Tsu decided to defect, she didn't use her position to leak intel to the villains, and she didn't ambush and murder any hero. She simply left UA openly and officially, before finding the newest ISP recruiter. Is that right, Tsu?"
She nods. She seems a bit surprised (although positively) by this analysis. Midoriya can practically see gears turning in Tokoyami's head before Blackwing bows their head towards Asui.
"We apologize for our insensitivity." They announce. Judging from a nod that they got from Asui, the crisis was averted.
"Of course, neither did Todoroki." Midoriya decides to announce it. He might as well do it right now.
"What?" Tokoyami asks while Tsuyu ribbits questioningly.
"Shoto Todoroki wasn't the UA Traitor." Midoriya replies. He can see the two of them stare at him in surprise. Yes, those words could be shocking to them. They would be shocking to almost everyone in Japan, in fact.
"Didn't he kill Endeavor?" Tokoyami is/are the first to ask. Yes, murdering your own father and the present Number One Hero would be a major red flag, except the situation was a bit more complicated.
"He didn't." Midoriya replies. "Dabi did. Together with Geten, Hypothermia's brother with a similar ice quirk. They lured him into the Sekoto Peak and then killed him together. Geten died in that battle, but Dabi cremated his body, so no one realized that there were two people there."
It was, in all honesty, brilliant. Especially as Dabi kept his fire on a downlow, to keep it more or less equal in heat with Endeavor's. With no one to witness the battle, how was someone supposed to discover what happened exactly? How do you differentiate ice created by one ice quirk from another? Especially as most of it melted.
"No witnesses, flame and ice quirk, some falsified records, Shoto not having an alibi, Dabi making sure that someone discovered what a trash bag Endeavor was to his family… the HPSC assumed that Shoto snapped under parental abuse. And then things continued on their own." Midoriya continues. "Heroes sent after him expected to meet a killer of Number One Hero so they went all out, he retaliated, some people died, he finally and completely snapped, but was eventually incarcerated in Tartarus. End of story. Well, until today."
Shoto Todoroki was never mentally stable in Midoriya's opinion. Thanks to Endeavor's stellar parenting, no doubt. Add All Might being long dead, half of his class being dead and buried, the country (and heroes) clearly against him all of a sudden - and the flames of Endeavor's last battle reaching his family estate, making him the last Todoroki alive - and he broke.
Sad, but unsurprising. UA fucked up with its abysmal psychological help for its students. One more thing that disgusted Izuku in the present hero system. You gather kids with powerful quirks, many of which have a potential for being a major threat to society… and then you half-ass their mental health care.
Hound Dog did his best. But they should have an entire staff of psychologists and psychiatrists at the ready. Especially in schools like the UA, with its vast repertoire of walking weapons of mass destruction.
What the fuck, Japan? Was it some sort of fucked up cultural thing that therapists were for some reason not there for as much as they should be? Midoriya checked it at some point, and both Europe and the United States invested A LOT more money into psychological counseling of hero trainees. Both to help them deal with their issues AND to weed out those that had too many of those to be allowed into a position of authority.
Midoriya respected Aizawa-sensei as a hero, but not as a teacher. Eraserhead should have sent Todoroki - the guy with a potential to be a walking nuke while clearly being emotionally stunted and not using half of his quirk - to a therapist. Right after the quirk apprehension test. After USJ in the worst case scenario.
No wonder there were so many villains on the streets nowadays.
"Then who…" Tsuyu tries to ask. After all, they are in front of someone who, considering his past position, knew the truth.
"Aoyama." Midoriya replies. "All for One had him blackmailed after granting a quirk to his sister that was born quirkless. After Kamino he realized that he couldn't stomach what he was responsible for and figured out that there is only way out of it that wouldn't make All for One murder his family. So he hung himself."
His plan worked, oddly enough. There was no point in killing his family anymore. To intimidate others? Why, if no one knew that Aoyama was a spy? To hurt All Might? Why, if that man was already dead?
He might have been a villain, but Midoriya didn't count him into the list of 1-A students turned villains. He was, chief among all, a victim. And he died, in a way, like a hero. Doing the hardest thing to save those close to him.
"Well…" Tokoyami says after a few seconds of silence. "... we didn't expect that. It'll certainly make our first meeting with Shoto awkward." Tsuyu looks away. She feels vaguely ashamed of herself for her earlier words. Especially considering the reason for her fall into villainy.
"Not really, no." Midoriya replies before sighing painfully. "What's going to make it awkward is the fact that I planned Endeavor's death."
(***)
Yes, Tartarus was one of the best defended and most secure locations in the world. However the operation of freeing Shoto was, in itself, a cakewalk. If it was only about warping him out of his cell, they could do that in twenty minutes, not in twenty-four hours.
The real problem was doing that in a way that would make the wardens remain blissfully unaware that they were missing one SS-Rank villain. Something that was a necessity for the first stage of Midoriya's plan to work. And that, well, that was going to be much harder.
Which is why it took several hours rather than twenty minutes.
If there was a lesson to be taken from the very existence of All for One, was that you could achieve almost everything with the right combination of quirks. And Izuku still had access to some very useful ones. Add his expertise on quirks… and suddenly many doors lied open before him.
Especially with the contents of his special safe.
He got the right people. Then he had Cloud open a minuscule warpgate into the very corner of the cell where Ragdoll's quirk located Shoto. The warp scramblers failed to interrupt it, as they weren't attuned to Cloud's warp quirk frequency.
Before opening the warp further, an old acquaintance (from the times of the first PLF, and generally retired but still owing Izuku for something) with a technopathic quirk took control of all the nearby computer systems - through the warpgate.
He was, technically, right next to them. That's all that his quirk needed to work.
With the cameras and other sensors taken over, the warpgate could expand without detection. Tokoyami walked through (Izuku could hear him cursing quietly) and unceremoniously dragged Todoroki back.
Well. That explains Ragdoll's readings.
Shoto looked like shit. Izuku wasn't sure how much longer he would stay alive. His eyes were unfocused, he clearly had a high fever, and… well. His hair was snow white (probably due to excess stress) and both messy and greasy. He was also missing some teeth. There were some visible bruises and scratches here and there and… well, that concluded the minor issues.
He was malnourished. He looked like a famine victim and his clothes were far too large for him now. His legs weren't moving at all, and considering how shrunk and limp they were, he must have been paralyzed from the waist-down. Excessive beating? Injuries from his last fight that nobody cared to address? The bedsores accompanying them were rather expansive as well.
Moreover, he probably didn't wash himself in a while. The stench was foul. The prisoner jumpsuit was most likely unsalvageable. Izuku certainly wouldn't want to be the one to wash it. He'll have it incinerated afterwards.
Asui looked away. Tokoyami shot Izuku a worried gaze. Yes, the time spent in Tartarus certainly didn't help Frostfire's sanity at all. He, most likely, didn't have a lot of it to begin with.
"Ehhhh?" Shoto blinked a few times, looking around. His eyes were only barely more focused afterwards. "O…odd. Aren't you all dead? D…does that mean that I'm dead too?" He seemed vaguely happy at that prospect. Izuku is pretty certain that he has no idea what was happening around him. High fever does that to people.
"Do your magic." Izuku said to another outsider in the room. An old acquaintance of All for One with a quirk that was incredibly helpful in deceiving the police. A man approaching his fifties who - like the technopath - kept away from the business since the Paranormal Liberation War ended. But since Izuku knew who they were… blackmail was a powerful force.
Especially when your demands are… moderate. And you're ready to pay for them to be met, as an additional motivation.
The man took out a knife and made a small incision on Shoto's arm. Todoroki winced a bit, but felt resigned and apathetic while doing so. It was less his conscious act and more his body's instinctual attempt to avoid more pain.
Five seconds later there was a perfect copy of Shoto lying on the floor. Not one of Twice's copies that would undo themselves with enough damage. Perfect biological recreation of the original's body. Except - completely and irreversibly dead.
Tokoyami carried it back into the cell. When the wardens find it, they'll decide that Todoroki had a sudden cardiac arrest during the night. The fame that saved Tartarus from being attacked by anyone has also made its crew increasingly lazy nowadays.
Technopath and body-copier left. Izuku nodded to Quicksilver, while Todoroki continued his half-conscious babble in the background. Toyoda left, only to return twenty seconds later. Dragging a fresh corpse into the room.
Well. Tenko managed to locate the person that sold the Crucible to the authorities. For such a trash bag of a person, they were going to at least be usable as fresh materials.
"What are you doing?" Tokoyami decided to inquire. Asui was eyeing them from the background, unreadable as always.
"Look, he'll probably drop dead in a few days." Midoriya replies. Tenko puts the corpse right next to Todoroki, who seems to be confused. He probably thinks that it's some sort of a dream. "The best case scenario, he'll need months of rehabilitation to be useful. So I'm going to accelerate the process a bit."
"By?" Tokoyami keeps staring at him questioningly.
"By using a present from an old acquaintance of mine." He replies while pulling out the injector. It's already loaded. "Overhaul's gadgets are simply to die for."
He injects the liquid into his own bloodstream. It should take only a few seconds for it to kick in and… ah, there it is.
For the next few minutes he was capable of using Overhaul's quirk. He had only four remaining injections left at this point, and no way of obtaining more (hopefully Hatsume and Yaoyorozu would change that). But in the meantime, he could - thanks to a certain gimmick of his body - use it to its fullest potential.
"Shoto" Izuku says, while grabbing his hand. His other hand is on the corpse next to him. "You might feel a little pinch. And probably a lot of horrible pain. But you'll feel better afterwards, I promise."
Todoroki opens his mouth to say something, but that's when Izuku activates Overhaul.
(***)
Shoto fainted midway through the emergency operation. By the end of the process, Todoroki's spine was healed, the bedsores were gone, his lower body was more or less repaired after years of slow degradation due to lack of usage, and some of his malnutrition had been dealt with. He even got his teeth back.
Izuku also dealt with the widespread infection that was slowly killing Todoroki. And a handful of more minor medical issues. If you can call a clearly untreated hepatitis and very early stage of a liver cancer (probably caused at least partially by said hepatitis) a minor medical issue.
They were really letting him just die in that cell, didn't they? No wonder Ragdoll's quirk was giving those readings. He was less a human being and more a corpse of one, just with his heart somehow still beating.
The fever was still there. The body would need a moment to realize what happened. Too used to being hurt to immediately accept the fact that it was healed. But he should feel better than he did in years once he wakes up. And especially once he starts eating better.
There was only so much Izuku could do to his lower body. His leg muscles were going to require some extensive rehabilitation to get back into shape. Midoriya ran out of the temporary quirk before fixing them fully, and he wasn't wasting another dose on that. Todoroki should be mobile enough with a walking cane for the time being.
The snitch's body was mostly cannibalized for fresh materials in the meantime. Some of it was wasted, too. Midoriya pointed at it with its chin, and Quicksilver carried it out of the room. Cloud was going to warp it into a volcano.
He also called Ragdoll to carry Todoroki out. She seemed vaguely uncomfortable with being right next to the infamous Frostfire. Midoriya wasn't surprised. Cloud was going to warp him into a certain special place once she was done with the snitch.
"We have even more questions." Tsuyu announced once Ragdoll left. She and Tokoyami were staring at him in shock.
"The Paranormal Liberation Front fell into what I called 'German Weapon Development Office Syndrome'." Midoriya replies. There is a reason why they aren't going to rely on mad science this time. "Loads of cool prototypes outperforming what our enemies had, but nothing ever got mass produced. Including a technology allowing one to change someone's blood into a serum allowing someone else to temporarily use their emitter quirk. I happen to have access to a handful of those, made from Overhaul's blood."
"I was once healed by him." Tsuyu announces. "I don't remember him being able to do so much."
Aww, busted.
"That's because I was never truly quirkless." Midoriya replies. They give him strange looks. Yes, that's a bit groundbreaking. "Many quirkless actually have either quirks with activation conditions too hard to be met… or those that do not do anything on their own, requiring other quirks to work. Something that was only ever useful for All for One. After I met him I discovered that I was among the second group. My quirk's called Mastery. It basically allows me to instantly master a quirk to its full theoretical potential. Except, as stated, people can only have a single quirk."
Instant mastery of a quirk, but without the quirk. Sometimes Izuku thought that the world he was living in was a joke… and he was the punchline.
"That's unfortunate." Tokoyami says. Tsuyu seems to be still weighing something in her mind. "It forms a perfect synergy with temporary quirk bestowal drugs, we can see that. But why didn't All for One try to give you another quirk? Or replace that with another one?"
And that was a perfectly valid question. All for One with his 'let's stack small-brain quirks because training yourself in using more complicated ones is SO HARD AND IMPOSSIBLY TIME-CONSUMING FOR A PERSON THAT CAN LIVE FOR CENTURIES. Ugh. Wait, where was Midoriya going with that sentence?
Right. All for One would probably kill for this quirk. Except…
"Because it's too strong." Midoriya replies. Tokoyami shoots him a questioning stare. "'Achieving full theoretical potential' includes, in most cases, developing various bodily adaptations. Think Uraraka and her fingerpads, except to a much greater degree. With Mastery trying to adapt its owners' body to improve the output. If All for One took that quirk, even for a moment…"
"... ouch." Tokoyami realizes the implications immediately. So many quirks. So many simultaneous mutations. If Midoriya's body couldn't withstand a single one… All for One had regeneration quirks, but they might actually end up working against him under Mastery. Especially if they would read the 'post-Mastery' body form as the new default and accelerate the changes further.
"Yeah." Midoriya replies. The mind images of the result were… actually pretty nice, all things considered. Alas, when quirks were involved, All for One was smart enough to avoid that fate. "The temporary quirks cause less violent reactions. What's more, Overhaul's quirk is just particularly compatible, with Mastery failing to figure out any notable mutations to improve it. And I can always reset the changes to my body at the end of it. So, yeah, that's what just happened."
They were going to need a while to get over the concept of surgically/pharmacologically induced quirks. Overhaul was an unmatched genius in the field of the applied quirk sciences. Only Garaki was anywhere near the same level, and he had decades more of experience.
There was a reason why Midoriya was ready to sponsor Overhaul's research. Even after what Kai Chisaki did to Eri. Once All for One died, Chisaki was his only hope. A quirk-removal drug to get Mastery out of his system, then a permanent quirk-bestowal drug to actually become quote unquote normal.
One more link in the chain of existential disappointment that Midoriya's life was. One more thing that he ended up regretting in the end. He did so many nasty things, hoping to finally fit in. And what did he get out of it?
Well, an adoptive daughter. That he bought from Overhaul in exchange for regular blood donations and monetary support for his research. That was the only positive thing he got out of it.
"Alrighty then." Midoriya decides to conclude the talk. He is tired. And emotionally drained after a brief feeling of power that Overhaul's quirk gave him. He needs to rest. "You're free for the day."
They just started their impossible campaign against the government by doing something generally considered to be impossible. And it turned out pretty easy. Hopefully this trend will stick. But Izuku doesn't have a lot of hope on that field.
(***)
Here you have it. The most possible point of divergence. Being born with a quirk, even one normally undetectable, can be a game-changer when your stepdad can detect them. And such a (potentially) cool quirk could make him alter their plan in the long-term. Leading to Hana being alive and the whole thing snowballing from there. That is, of course, if Izuku isn't playing mindgames. And if Mastery actually exists.
Expect me to be very, very vague about that. Guesswork is a go, I guess. Also no update this friday because that was a one-time thing due to me being supremely bored. And I'm not supremely bored normally. So we're back to Monday updates.
In the next chapter we'll find out if Midoriya gets a few new recruits or if he gets Prominence Burn'ed to death. Because wow, Shoto has some valid reasons to do that.
Also ngl, All for One trying to take that quirk only to end up looking like a goddamn Chaos Spawn is a funny vision.