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Saddly no reviews to comment this time. Some probably copy pasted "blackmail" review on the first chapter is kind of funny, but I doubt person behind that is going to read this.

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Proofread by 3DPhantom

Chapter 55: Dark Past Dark Future

"See you tomorrow," Hitoshi said as the car arrived.

"Yeah," Izuku agreed, a little sad like every Sunday around this time. They both turned to face Tenya, who was even tenser than usual, and that was already a lot. Izuku reached out to put his hand on Tenya's back.

"You have done nothing wrong. Don't let them make you think anything else."

"I know. It is just... I am not sure I can… It has already been hard to go against them to be here. It feels wrong."

"They raised you to follow their principles and obey. You always want to do everything by the book," Hitoshi said. "Of course, it is difficult to go against them even if they are wrong."

And this was why Hitoshi should have come to the hospital with Izuku and Tenya the previous day. Tenya nodded, but the gesture was empty of confidence.

"Call if you need us," Izuku said straight to the point. There wasn't really anything else he could offer at this point short of kidnapping Tenya, "and remember you can come here any time if you need to get away."

Hitoshi stepped to the side to guide Tenya into the car first. It didn't really make sense with how close Tenya lived but at least he would be in good hands for that short trip. Izuku had half a mind to go along, but that might just spark more trouble for nothing but having to let go a little later. If they encountered Tenya's parents Tenya would need people that could de-escalate the situation. That wasn't Izuku. Excluding Dark Shadow everyone going into the car would handle that better than him.

Izuku glanced at Eijiro who just turned to say goodbye to Todoroki, who was standing next to him. Izuku could quite literally see as his two-faced classmate caught Eijiro's contagious smile. If Izuku hadn't used his All For One on Eijiro before, he would have sworn the redhead had to have a second quirk.

Eijiro joined the rest in the car, leaving behind only Izuku, and Todoroki who had moved right next to Izuku. Izuku hadn't seen him more than a few steps away from someone since the failed beach visit the previous day. When he wasn't around Izuku he could usually be found within an arm's reach of Eijiro. Izuku had no arguments against that approach. Really helped when feeling down or unsecure.

Izuku hid his sadness from his face and reached his arm over Todoroki's shoulders as they waved to the leaving car. Todoroki didn't even shudder at the touch. If anything, he leaned into it.

"It is always the worst part of the week," Izuku said quietly. "How are you feeling?"

"Something," Todoroki answered after a moment. "I don't like it."

"Same," Izuku said and pulled gently to make both of them turn. "Come on, let's go inside."

"Aren't we going to train anymore?" Todoroki asked, confused.

"We can if you want. I often go to the gym after the others leave, if I don't have anything else to do."

By that he meant getting crushed by bioengineered monsters or going around wearing a black mask.

"I don't really feel like watching movies or things like that alone anymore so…" Izuku shrugged.

"Those kind of things are wastes of time that will hurt my training to become a hero," Todoroki muttered, but his words were mechanical, like he was repeating something he had memorized or been made to memorize. His voice started breaking as he whispered the last part. "… just like playing with the other kids not destined for greatness."

Izuku stopped and yanked Todoroki closer. He would have stared at Todoroki, but the other's head was down, facing away from him. Izuku's voice came out as unnecessarily harsh as anger dripped into it.

"Is that what Endeavour told you?"

Eventually Todoroki nodded very carefully.

"He told me I shouldn't let anyone stand in my way of getting stronger. That I should just ignore those who are weak and useless or push them aside. I did both."

Izuku was now squeezing his free hand in a fist, focusing his anger on the free hand so as to not do the same to Todoroki's shoulder with the other. Blue sparks lit the air around the hand. He was starting to regret he'd let Eijiro leave. He really needed to hit something. He swung his free hand towards the rock Eijiro had shattered weeks ago and fired off a Hellfire Arrow. It hit perfectly in the hole Eijiro's fist had made to enter the rock and shatter it from the inside.

Only the cling of a broken window and shouting from the neighbour made Izuku's sensible side consider that might have been what people call "not smart". He'd really hear it from the gardener for this.

Todoroki on the other hand had raised his head with fear creeping back on his face.

"Sorry, sorry," Izuku said and breathed in deep, holding his hand open in an apologetic gesture.

"You are angry," Todoroki stated the obvious like it was a great revelation.

"I'm angry at Endeavour, not you."

"Oh," Todoroki relaxed a little under Izuku's arm. "I think I understand."

"I hope so," Izuku said, calming himself down. "Leaving him behind won't help your future if you can't leave behind what he tried to make you into."

"What did he make me into?"

Izuku nudged him to continue moving towards the door and asked: "Do you really want to talk about this now? I mean two days ago you weren't exactly eager to hear what I thought."

"It is okay, but, don't ask me to use his fire."

"Your fire," Izuku said, unable to help himself. "Sorry."

They stepped inside and went to the living room sofa. After a weekend of having it full, it felt strange to sit on it with just Todoroki and no one else around. The sofa and house didn't feel quite as empty as usual, but the difference was still sad, especially in the large room. Izuku didn't usually spend much time there when he was alone.

"So, I tried to tell this to you before, but Endeavour has been making you into himself, and he was succeeding."

"I tried to refuse him."

Izuku shook his head.

"You say that, but out of everything you got from him you only tried to refuse part of your quirk, nothing more, none of what was really making you into what he wanted. Just because you resisted him in one way didn't change everything else you were doing. What you just said, about pushing weaker people aside or seeing them as useless. You have been doing that, or at least looking at other people like that, since the beginning. You think power determines a person's value, especially their quirk. Out of everything that is the worst thing Endeavour has done to you."

"But you need power to be a hero, especially number one."

"And that's another thing," Izuku said, "why do you want to be either of those things?"

Todoroki looked at him, mouth half-open.

"Shouldn't I want to be a hero?" He finally asked.

"Depends on what you think being a hero means and why you want to be one. Endeavour wants power to stand above others, worshipped by them, and doesn't care about them or really what happens to them. Unfortunately, a lot of people with strong quirks look at that and think the same. The country is full of fake heroes and people like that wanting to be heroes for those reasons."

"How do you know?"

Izuku's eyes narrowed and his voice turned colder than Todoroki's quirk.

"I shared a classroom with one for the past decade. It opened my eyes to what kind of people often become heroes and are blindly supported by the wider society, even at the cost of others. You aren't as loud or murderous, but you have been on the same path. Thinking: I will be the strongest, I will be the number one, I will be rich and famous, I am better and more important than you extras so stay out of the way or you'll regret it, I, I, I…"

Izuku caught himself falling into a rant and snapped his mouth shut long enough for Todoroki to process the words. He lowered his head in shame.

"I never thought it like that. I only thought being a hero was something I was supposed to be the best at."

"You were told you were supposed to be, and then you wanted to be one just to show your father. How becoming exactly what he wanted was going to show him anything is something I still don't get."

Todoroki remained quiet for a moment before asking: "Then what should I do?"

"What do you want to do?" Izuku shot back. "You could well still become a hero, but the question is why. If you only do it for status or money or to show off how strong you are, you might save some people, but you will only hold up the rotten ideals as you do now."

"I… don't know. What should I…?"

Izuku shook his head.

"What do you want to do?" Todoroki asked this time. Izuku's head froze still. "Did I say something wrong?" Todoroki sounded concerned.

"No, but for the question… Usually I just want to keep the people around me safe, besides that…" Izuku had to stop to censor his words. "I would like to change this society and how people treat each other, especially heroes. Like the whole thing I just said about what Endeavour taught you, the supposed heroic ideal he and All Might and others promote, about not so much what people should do but what they should be."

"So Endeavour wouldn't like it if you could do that?"

"Most certainly not, but… As despicable as he is, you shouldn't decide what you want to do based on what he doesn't like. You already made that mistake."

Todoroki slumped against the backrest next to Izuku. Part of Izuku wanted to keep pushing, make Todoroki break out of the remnants of the chains that had held him, but he held back. Trying to consider what Hitoshi would do, Izuku figured it would be enough if Todoroki recognized the issues he had. The rest could wait.

"So should I stay at UA or leave?" Todoroki said, snapping Izuku out of his thoughts.

"Are you really asking that?" Izuku asked.

Todoroki nodded. "I only go there because I was told to, because that was the best way to become the number one hero."

"So, what would you do instead?" Todoroki remained quiet, barely moving as Izuku put a hand on his arm. "I can understand not caring about UA as much as everyone else, but you shouldn't make a change like that when you don't even know what else you want to do."

Todoroki seemed unconvinced. If he was already capable of acting, he was certainly capable of acting rashly. Izuku shouldn't have had a problem with removing a promising student from UA and the hero system, but Todoroki considering it still felt wrong for some reason. Izuku quickly tried to think about things that could convince him to at least delay such decisions. He squeezed Todoroki's arm.

"Do you have anyone, any friends outside of UA, besides your family, the parts that aren't rotten?"

Todoroki shook his head.

"Then you should stick to where you have people that support you, at least until you have a reason to leave. Even Eijiro might not smile if you just left."

Todoroki's eyes opened a bit wider, then blinked. Izuku could understand the feeling. What he had described was difficult to imagine, but anything was possible if things got bad enough.

"How about we worry about getting Endeavour off your back and figure out how you are going to live from now on, before you start making any other radical changes for your future. You have to go to school somewhere anyway."

"Okay," Todoroki said and thought for a moment. "Do you really think Kirishima would be sad if I left? I have only been cold to him for weeks and even burned him."

"Of course he would be, we all would, and that guy has shrugged off a lot worse than what you did to him," Izuku tried to mimic the smile he thought Eijiro would give in that situation. "I should know. I threw a lot of that at him."

That made Todoroki huff like he was holding back a laugh, or at least a chuckle. A lot of tension in his posture evaporated.

"I have always thought the best way to feel comfortable was to be alone, not with other people," Todoroki said quietly. Izuku inched a little closer.

"I know. It depends on the people. Finding the right ones is the difficult part. There aren't many."

They didn't feel like watching a movie, so they just sat there until deciding to get a bath before going to bed. When you have a spa, you should use it. It didn't matter that Izuku hadn't kept it warm. Todoroki dipped in first and Izuku noticed the increase in steam in the room before even getting in the hot pool. After vaporising a stadium-sized iceberg, warming one pool was nothing.

"Thank you," Izuku said. His mood was only soiled by Todoroki seeming to be caught off guard by the appreciating comment. He held back his wish to say something. Now that Eijiro wasn't present to cannonball into the water they could just relax in silence before heading upstairs. Izuku stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at Todoroki.

"Since it's just the two of us now, you can use my bedroom if you want."

"You mean, alone?"

"Yes," Izuku responded, but Todoroki's expression turned somewhere between fearful and pleading, "or we can stay in the sleepover room. It's a bit full now, but…"

"Not as full as last night."

"Okay we both can stay there," Izuku said. It was what he preferred anyway. Though he couldn't contact his father that way.

"I don't want to be trouble."

"You aren't, come."

Izuku led them to the room still full of more beds than it was ever planned to hold. Seeing them empty was a bit unfortunate, but it was only a few more hours till Monday and the room wasn't completely quiet; Todoroki rustled behind Izuku, changing clothes. They got onto the same beds next to each other they had used during the weekend, except for the new unburnt linens that Izuku had changed for his bed.

Soon they were laying on the beds silently staring at the ceiling, both wary of the demons of their lives rising up with the fall of darkness.

"Midoriya," Todoroki whispered.

"Yes?" Izuku responded.

"You said you want to change things, not just with us but the system, the whole society?"

"Yes?" Izuku responded more carefully.

"How? It seems impossible. I'm not sure I can even get away from one man from that system."

"It's not easy. The easiest thing is to help people who are better than that to succeed even when they are being pushed down. Imagine if any of us," Izuku gestured not just at the two of them but also the empty beds around them, "had not gotten into UA. Whoever took those seats in the class could have been like Bakugo, or at least someone in it for the money like Uraraka, or someone like Ojiro."

"Is that why you help so many people train? I don't think that is enough to change anything."

"Not really, out of all of you only Toshi had a real risk of not being accepted if I wasn't involved and no. It's not. I wish it was that easy, but you can't fix something that large just by helping a few people get what they deserve. It would be like trying to paint over one wall of a rotten house and point to it pretending the house is fine."

"Then how?"

Izuku pressed his lips together. Him and his big mouth. Now he had to pick his words carefully. Then again…

Todoroki sounded unusually interested in Izuku's words. Maybe Endeavour had done some good showing his son the dark side of the system he represented. Izuku was tempted to test him at least.

"I'm not exactly sure how to do it," he only partially lied, "but you can't fix a rotten house without replacing the rotten parts that keep it up. You have to take down at least the most rotten walls and build better ones."

"Walls?"

"Whatever keeps things how they are, like Endeavour," Izuku glanced at Todoroki and even in the darkness thought he saw a spark of realization in his eyes. "If we expose all that he has done it will do a lot more then helping you. Exposing the number two hero as nothing but burning garbage won't fix the world, but it should make people at least consider what is really going on, like opening a wall to show them a spot of mold and rot on the supporting pillars. If stuff like that happens enough something might change. People don't want to live in a rotten house, but they often don't realize they do until it is too late to fix it."

Todoroki looked at him in the darkness for a long time.

"Wouldn't people try to stop that from happening?"

"Of course. They already do, just think about the quirk restriction laws. They restrict most quirk use except for those who are part of the system as heroes."

"Isn't that just for safety so incompetent people don't hurt others with their quirks?"

"Many people are hurt by cars. Should we ban driving for anyone who isn't hired by the government to drive and only let those people go to driving school in the first place?"

"That doesn't seem like it would be smart."

"So why do the exact same thing with quirks? Everyone talks about quirks, judges people based on quirks and worship heroes for what they do with their quirks, but almost everyone can be treated as criminal for nothing more than using their quirk. If anything, that makes things more dangerous since people don't get to practice with their quirks if they don't get into a hero school."

"Then why?"

"Because people with no experience in using their quirks are not much more of a threat to heroes than those with weak or no quirk. Makes heroes' work easier… and helps them to stay on the top."

"So, everyone should be taught to use their quirks? Wouldn't that still be dangerous?

"You don't need to be a prodigy to use a quirk responsibly," Izuku snapped, perhaps a little too harshly, but maybe that was what it took to get Endeavour's poison out of Todoroki. "Living is dangerous. You can't put people in cages just because they might be capable of doing something bad, only when they actually do it."

"I understand, but you cannot just change the law."

"No," Izuku sighed, "it is not that simple. People have been taught to fear foreign quirks and trust heroes. You'd have to make people see the trouble with heroes first, like with Endeavour. Even if we could just change those laws and expose every hero that wouldn't solve everything. The current system might be rotten, but if you just remove it there is nothing holding back people with powerful quirks from doing a lot of harm."

Izuku stopped for a moment to dwell in the darkness of his past. Todoroki kept looking at him.

"You are different," Todoroki finally said. Izuku's head perked up.

"What," he hesitated, "what do you mean?"

Todoroki stared at him, speaking frankly and without obvious emotion.

"I have heard you point out many things I don't usually think about, but never like this. I didn't expect that. Sounds like you want to fight the world. It is confusing."

Izuku barely breathed, thinking he'd gone too far. He had to step back.

"Sorry," he blurted out, "I didn't mean to. I tend to think about things when trying to sleep, especially difficult things. It is not very realistic to do much about it, but I'll still help you expose Endeavour."

Todoroki's expressions were difficult to read in the darkness, but he was still looking at Izuku. Izuku hoped he was just thinking about Endeavour.

"You are going to do more," Todoroki said.

Izuku didn't breathe for a few seconds, feeling Todoroki creeping closer to his secrets.

"I think I want to help you," Todoroki finally said. It took Izuku a while to process. He turned to his side to better face Todoroki.

"I told you; you shouldn't choose what you do based on your father."

"I'm not. I have hated him my entire life, but I have never thought about what he might have done to other people. I never cared. You do. You get mad and shed tears for the sake of others," Todoroki left the statement hanging in the air. Izuku swallowed quietly.

"I…" he started, "it is nothing special. I have lived a lot of it. It is hard not to see things after you have had to experience them, like you wouldn't assume someone is a good person just because they are a famous hero."

"No, but I want to see the rest," Todoroki said, "I still don't know if I want to be a hero, but I think I should help people somehow, like you. How can I if I don't know why they are suffering?"

"If you try to change things a lot of people won't appreciate you," Izuku warned, "especially not like they would if you just become a hero and do what people expect."

"I know, but isn't that what you said is wrong with heroes anyway?"

Head still laying on the pillow, Izuku nodded slightly. "Yeah, fake heroes at least. I'm happy there might be at least one real one in the room."

"I will also try to be one, at least as long as I'm at UA."

Izuku didn't correct Todoroki's misunderstanding.

He was too busy thinking about everything else that had just been said. Had he just recruited the so-called number two hero's son to join his crusade against current hero society?

Okay, maybe not quite. Todoroki probably would not join the league even if it was to take down Endeavour, but still… Even Hitoshi and Tenya hadn't gone that far in listening to Izuku's rants or wanting to get involved with them. Though he probably had never slipped that deep into them.

'Oh, dad would love this.'

After they stopped talking Todoroki's breathing soon slowed down and he drifted off to sleep surprisingly quickly. Izuku had expected Todoroki to have difficulties sleeping considering everything he had gone through, but he had done the opposite. On Saturday evening Todoroki had dozed off before there was even time to brainwash him to sleep.

Then again, Izuku slept best during the weekends too. Feeling secure could do wonders to a wary soul. Todoroki's face was facing towards Izuku and seemed more at peace than at any time in the past several weeks. Something inside Izuku demanded him to protect that peace.

The last few days had been a bit of a mess, especially the sports festival, but looking at the non-symmetrical face in front of him at that moment, Izuku felt he had at least done something right.

He thought he had warmed up to Eijiro quickly; who wouldn't? But now it seemed he might need to have the talk with Todoroki soon.