The great events that determined the fate of Japan came in many orders of magnitude.
The rise of quirks that had destroyed the then 3rd largest and strongest economy on planet Earth and hurled societal progress back about a hundred years.
The rise of All for One, the great king of evil, who had ruled Japan's underworld from the shadows.
The chance formation of the quirk known as One For All, that would pass through hands and hands for generation after generation, until finally ending up in the hands of one Toshinori Yagi, and his rise as the Juggernaut of Justice that all knew as All Might.
By comparison, the newest such titanic event was a far, far more humble affair.
Just a man, taping a letter to the door of an apartment complex.
It was a small thing. But this one small event would go to shake the ancient Empire, as thoroughly as the formation of One For All Had so long ago.
The letter was a simple, humble envelope that had a simple message written in bold letters.
To Izuku, From Dad.
I
It was an early morning in Japan.
The sun was shining, the droves of salary workers were making their way to their jobs, schoolkids of all ages moved through the streets heading for their various schools, and a giant monster was fighting a man in armor made of wood.
Izuku smiled as she looked up at it, though she hadn't pulled out her regular smaller book to take notes.
Part of that was that she already had done notes on the wooden Hero up above on the train tracks that served as the current battleground.
The larger part was simply that she just… Wasn't in the mood right now.
It wasn't that today was a bad day for her. On the contrary, she felt pretty good right now… It was just that it wasn't a Good day either.
It was an… Okay, day. That was fine though. An okay day was still infinitely better than a bad day, something she knew from long, bitter experiences.
"Ah, quite the sight ain't it." Said an older man, smiling up at the two superpowered figures battling it out.
He seemingly wasn't directing it at anyone in particular, but Izuku, being Izuku, answered him without even thinking about it.
"Yeah! Kamui Woods is so cool! He's the newest rising superstar right now!"
The old man glanced over at her, and smiled in a grandfatherly way, as the battle above made a crashing sound.
"Ah, it must be nice being a hero in this age. The youngsters back in my day didn't have cheering fangirls at all!"
Izuku blushed, but it was true enough. She was probably the biggest Hero fangirl in the entire Empire of Japan!
Up above, unheeding of the thoughts of the people below, the Hero known as Kamui Woods decided he was going to finish this battle.
Izuku felt her heart swell, as she saw the Hero Kamui Woods prepare his signature attack… Only to be dramatically cut off, as another hero entered the fray. A massive, enormously tall woman, wearing an incredibly formfitting outfit took the giant villain down with a flying jump kick, much to the exhilaration of the crowd.
Izuku included.
She grinned, and this finally did manage to get her to instinctually fish out her notebook and began to scribble and notetaking.
More out of instinctual habit than anything else.
As the new hero, Mt. Lady introduced herself to the gathered crowds(This apparently being her debut day) and picture takers, Izuku began writing and muttering as she usually did when she got into Hero stuff.
"Gigantification, a relatively common, and powerful quirk. Quite a bit larger than normal too, but could the increase in power be offset by lack of utility? The risk of public destruction seems immensely high unless she is capable of changing to a size between her normal and full form…"
"Oh, taking notes, are you girlie? Planning to be a hero yourself?"
Izuku immediately froze, feeling her cheek blush like embers.
She nodded.
"That so? Well good to you!"
He grinned, then walked off, obviously thinking nothing of it. Just a random talk with a random girl on the street.
Izuku stared after him, feeling a pang of welcome happiness at being wished good luck… Then she realized she really needed to get moving to class.
I
Izuku was reading through her notes on Heroes and Quirks as the teacher entered, a scowl on his face, and an expression that said he was not in any mood for sassy back talk today.
Everyone immediately quieted down.
Tori looked out over the class with a sour expression as he dropped a thick stack of notes on his table.
"As I rather hope you guys are aware now… You are third-years."
He glared at several of the boys In front who were the class clowns. Izuku could not see what said boy's expression was, but there was not a hint of backtalk.
Unlike his previous teacher In Aldera Middle School, Tori had an ability to shut down any talk from his students while he was in a room.
"Whatever your background, you are now going to have to think about your futures. And I already know what each, and every one of you are going to write on these future career forms I'm about to hand out."
He glared out over the class… Then closed his eyes and sighed.
"Frankly speaking, every single time I have ever reached a new set of third-years, everyone ALWAYS wants to aim to be a Pro Hero. And why not? It is a very lucrative job. And I'm going to say to you lot the same thing I said to my second batch of third-Years."
He began to walk among them, glaring down at the class as he did so. As he passed Izuku, she immediately felt a stab of panic… But the old scenes never repeated themselves here.
Tori did not stop to linger at her, the way her previous teacher had. He never did.
"There are 22 of you here. Of those, 2 or three of you are likely to make it as Pro Heroes. Maybe 4 if you are very lucky. The rest of you… Will not. You will have to integrate into other, more mundane fields. Either because you decided to go down that road from the start, or because you were absolutely crushed by the harsh and unforgiving Hero Exams. Either way… The result will be the same."
He returned to his desk.
"As such, I will be giving each of you two sets of papers, where every single one of you will cover your hopes for the future… Both as a Hero if that is what you wish to be… And a possible career you could imagine for yourself if you fail on that road. Obviously, if you don't want to be a hero, you need not fill in the papers twice."
Izuku could hear the groans of having more paperwork hoisted on their shoulders, but no one gave a true challenge, or verbal complaint, leaving their sensei to begin handing out said, informative papers.
Izuku stared down at the paper.
It did not take her long to fill out the Hero set. Frankly, she finished quicker than almost anyone else in the class.
The other one though…
She did not want to write anything. At all. A large part of her felt… Felt like if she wrote anything there, it was the same as giving up on the idea of becoming a hero.
It was actually a pretty big concern throughout the class, though Izuku didn't know it.
The scrawny girl though had another, bigger reason to have that idea looming over her head than most.
Memories of a boy with blonde hair, and red eyes came to her mind as she stared down at the paper, feelings of both fear, rage, and shame coursing through her mind.
There were few things she wanted in life less than to prove Katsuki right after all.
Ultimately, she simply settled on writing that her second life choice would be to join the business side of hero work.
She tried not to treat it as an admission of failure. To admit she was worthless.
About a year ago, Izuku had changed schools, transferring from Aldera to Gura Middle School.
It had come after a series of events, beginning with her father's funeral, and ending with a metal pipe as a lifetime of being trodden into the dirt finally reached a breaking point.
The fallout had been… Pretty massive. It had involved a mutual non-disclosure agreement between the families of Midoriya and Bakugo, and her being forced to change schools.
It was in many ways one of the best things that could have ever happened to her… But it was also something that would never have been possible, if not for the single worst thing that had ever happened to her.
Her father's death.
She avoided thinking about that.
She had to avoid thinking about that.
Every single time she thought about that, Izuku would almost always find herself crying her eyes out. The wounds had not healed, even now after a year.
However, his extremely massive life insurance had allowed her mother to do something she'd wanted to do for years. Get him out of Aldera, and away from Kacchan.
That had helped her… But escaping the bullying, the putdowns, and Kacchan had only been replaced by another problem. Her father's death, which had been far, far worse for her than anything she'd ever experienced at school.
Gura was a quiet, peaceful school for her. No one attacked her here, no one assaulted her, or went out of their way to pick on her… But no one purposefully offered a hand of friendship and support either.
For Izuku… She in large part felt like that was her own fault. These people did not owe her their friendship. And she… She hadn't been in any shape to try and reach out to anyone either.
And so, she had once again ended up the class loner. Not the same kind that she had been before, thank God, but a loner nonetheless.
Still… At least it was better for her than what had come before.
I
Her journey home from school was pretty uneventful, right up until she was jumped by a villain while walking through a tunnel.
One moment, she was walking, thinking about school, her life, her future… And then in the next, a giant mass of sludge shot up from a manhole cover behind her.
She barely had time enough to turn around and panic before the sludge in question engulfed her.
What followed was a struggle, as Izuku desperately tried to escape from the suffocating mass of liquid that engulfed her.
She tried to scream, to scrape away the sludge that was stopping her airflow.
Sheer panic, a primal fear, and a desperate wish to survive.
All of that was the only thing Izuku could focus on as she desperately, deeply tried to survive against the engulfing liquid.
All the while the monster who was currently drowning her was whispering sweet nothings into her ears.
And then…
"FEAR NOT KID! I AM HERE!"
The voice behind her was absolutely booming! Bombastic! Larger than life!
"TEXAS SMASH!"
The horrifying, disgusting sludge was blown away.
When Izuku came too she felt something, a big, giant hand clap her softly against her face.
"Ugh… What…"
"Oh, you're fine! Excellent!"
She blinked.
It was All Might. Holy shit, it was All Might himself!
"ALL MIGHT?!"
The big, enormous muscled hunk of a man grinned as he was known to do, as he raised himself back up to his full height.
"Indeed young lady, that is my name!"
He swept his famous V-shaped hair back with one hand.
"My apologies for getting you caught up in my villain hunt! Mistakes like that aren't usually my style, but… This is a strange land to me!"
Then, with a movement of his hand that was so quick and snappy it literarily sounded like a whip, he presented a soda bottle filled with… The Sludge villain's clearly unconscious eyes, and sludge around them.
"But if it makes you feel better kid, my success here is all thanks to you! Without him stopping, I would not have managed to contain him nearly as easily!"
Izuku for her own part had practically forgotten all about said villain and the fact she had just escaped the clutches of death by a villain whose motives she didn't really understand.
She was instead just completely, totally starstruck by the sight in front of her. The pillar of Japan's superhero society! The symbol of Peace and Justice!
She was about to scramble to get out her notebook, then stopped. She had All Might himself here, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and she wanted to ask him for his autograph?
There was something else she wanted to ask him far, far more. Something she NEEDED to ask him.
All Might for his part was turning around, and bending his knees, clearly readying to leap away in his usual, golden age superman like style of movement.
"Wait! I… I need to ask-"
"A pro battles not only Evil but also time I'm Afraid. Now I must bring this fellow to the Authorities."
He was about to move.
Izuku, desperate to ask All Might the question she needed to hear one way or another, did something remarkably stupid.
She grabbed onto one of his legs as he jumped.
And so was carried away by the sheer momentum and force.
Had she grabbed his left leg, the bottle containing what passed for a brain inside the sludge man would have had a further journey, and history would have turned out quite differently.
As it was, however, Izuku grabbed his right leg. And on that choice, the course of history turned.
While in the air, All Might, having, to his shock, discovered the tag-along passenger, was forced to maneuver and realign so the girl was in his arms as he landed on a roof, and most of the shock from said impact went through him, and the power of One for All.
Izuku was left coughing and wheezing, as she had to struggle not to throw up once All Might had safely put her down on the roof floor.
All Might for his part was left leaning over the railway, also breathing heavily, though he was obviously trying to hide it.
"THAT WAS SEVERELY STUPID OF YOU YOUNG LADY! WHAT IF YOU HAD LOST YOUR GRIP BEFORE I NOTICED YOU!?"
Izuku flinched, imagining exactly what such a fall would have ended with.
"S-sorry…"
She raised herself up and turned toward the man in front of her.
She… She wanted him so, so much. It was practically a dream come true, but… But she didn't want to anger him even more. And so, she just asked the thing she wanted to ask him.
"Can… Can someone without a quirk… Become a Hero like you?"
All Might immediately stiffened.
"Quirks are…"
And then, he suddenly stiffened again, this time like someone had nailed him in the back of the spine, as steam suddenly began rising from his body.
Izuku blinked. Did… Did All Might have steam powers? If so, she had never seen it in any of the countless videos she'd seen of him.
Then, the steam got immensely thicker, before dissipating… Leaving an incredibly frail, lanky, sickly, and skeleton-looking man in All Might's place.
They stood in silence for a bit, Izuku with her jaw as far down as it could possibly go, the man… All Might… With a resigned look on his face.
"Well… This is Awkward."
"Wha… You… What… Huh? Wait… No way! This… This is a joke right?"
The shocked reaction, along with the expression Izuku was making was pretty comical, but All Might did not crack a smile. On the contrary, he looked the very picture of seriousness.
"You… You… You are All Might right?" The blonde hair and blue eyes had remained of the famous symbol of peace, but that was about it.
Had Izuku not seen the transformation happen practically right in front of him, he would never have believed it… But it had.
"Have you… Always been like this?"
"Not quite… I used to really be just as big and strong as I normally look… But it's been a while since that was the case."
The man looked her over with an inquisitive look.
"As for now… You know how people hold their gut at the pool to look in better shape? It's like that."
"...Seriously?"
"Yeah… So… You want to be a Hero huh? Even without a quirk…"
The question managed to get Izuku at least partially out of the shock she had at seeing All Might's true form.
"Yeah… I… I do. I… Ever since I first saw the video of your debut, I… I always thought that saving people… Was the coolest thing anyone could ever do… Seeing you, with your fearless smile as you saved all those people… It was amazing. The most incredible thing I ever saw."
And it had been. That one, single moment captured in time had left a mark on her stronger than anything else in her life.
All Might looked her over with a neutral expression, then he sank down, his back against the railing.
"A fearless smile, huh…"
All might's left hand went down to his now comically oversized white shirt and lifted it up.
His entire left side was covered in scars, one, gigantic mass of it, sickly and overgrown like a spiderweb, and filled with countless smaller hole-sized scars where stitches had been once upon a time to keep his skin together along every point.
Izuku… Izuku saw something else though. She saw another man with long hair, wearing a white coat, leaning up against a wall, as guts and blood and gore spilled out of his guts.
"Five years ago… An enemy did this to me. My respiratory system was nearly completely destroyed, and my original, natural stomach had to be removed. I've wasted away due to the aftermath of those surgeries. Getting weaker and weaker as every month goes by. I can only do hero work for about 3 hours a day now."
Izuku barely heard him describe his woes. Instead, all she could think of was her dad and the way he had been as he clutched her hand, as he… as he…
She blinked hard, and forced herself to look All Might in the eyes, the images of that night still threatening to completely overwhelm her.
Focus on All Might. Listen to what he says. Don't think about it. Don't think about that night. Don't think about dad.
What had he said? Five years ago?
"Five years ago…? You mean… Toxic Chainsaw?"
That was the only option that came to her mind right then. Maybe a more there Izuku might have recalled more, but as it was the images of a dying man threatened to overwhelm her.
"You've done your homework I see. But no, that lowlife could never have done this to me."
All Might looked down at the floor, looking almost ashamed of himself.
"This… Was never made public. That is to say, I asked that it not be made public."
He looked back up again and looked her straight in the eyes.
"A symbol of peace, who saves people with a smile, must Never be daunted by Evil. The reason I smile is to stave off the overwhelming feelings of fear and pressure I feel."
Izuku had always thought of All Might as some superhuman demigod. So having him admit to fears and failure on his part was a massive, utter shock to her that changed her conception of the man completely. Because that was what he was. A man.
But that was immediately washed away by what All Might said next.
"A Pro Hero ALWAYS has to be ready to risk their life, regardless of how they feel. If you feel fear… You have to overcome it. That part is something all Pros have to deal with… But then there was your question. Can you become a Hero without power at all? No, I should think not."
And that was that. A simple, easy answer.
Like a bullet, straight to her hopes and dreams.
"If you wish to help people like that, becoming a police officer is always an option. They are often mocked as nothing more than "Villain Custody Officers", but that too is admirable work, regardless of what many say."
Izuku just stared after him, utterly numb as All Might took his leave.
"It's not wrong to dream. However… You need to be realistic, kid."
I
Izuku's mood when she finally reached her apartment home could only be described as completely, and total rock bottom.
Every step felt like lead, feeling like a burst of energy left her with every single further foot she put in front of the other.
Broken dreams were not a stranger to Izuku, but this time… This time was different. It was final. Total. Decisive.
The end.
That was that.
She just… wanted to go lie down. She did not want to have to think about it all, the clear reality that had stared her in the face for all these years… The reality she should have confronted when her dad… When her dad…
Izuku froze.
Then rubbed her eyes, just to make it clear that yes, she wasn't just seeing things.
That had been her first thought. She had been thinking about her dad, and so she saw something that couldn't possibly be real.
But no… Real it was.
Her hand went up to the door and pulled down the letter.
To Izuku, from Dad.
The letters were written in her father's bold, strong words.
That didn't have to mean anything though. Anyone could write in whatever style they wanted.
Still, as she opened it, the horrible thoughts about what All Might had spelled out for her, were for a moment driven away by the one thing that could possibly have overpowered them. The one thing that mattered more to her than her dream.
The father she would never see again.
My child. If you're reading this, it means I have perished before I could show you the things I have arranged for you in person.
If so, I apologize profusely. There is so much I would have yet to tell you, my child… Things you need to know… Far more than I can express in this letter.
Things I do not trust the messenger with.
I am sorry this letter will not give you all the answers you seek… And there will be many, many more questions you would have for me in your future.
Questions I cannot answer. Questions you will have to figure out yourself, or not at all.
But what you need to know is this.
For the last few years, I was working on something. Something for you. Something that will bring joy and happiness to your life. The kind that I and your mother, to our great sorrow, was never able to give you.
Now, as I write this letter, I have just finished it. My life's great work. Our Carpe Diem… My great gift to you.
Together with this message, I'm going to leave a map, an address, and instructions for how to reach it.
However, there is more you need to know.
There will be two girls you will encounter in your future.
I dare not name them here, but you will know them in time. They have both been given gifts similar to the one I have left for you… If from an earlier point in my work.
Both have blue eyes and black hair, and in one of them, a streak of red running through it.
The girls will seek you out in their own time.
They are both keys to the many, many questions you seek the answers to.
And unless I am very mistaken, both of them will be very important to you personally.
Finally, there is this. As I write this, I am about to take a gamble. A massive and very, very dangerous one.
If you read this, it is extremely likely that said gamble has failed. If so, there is a woman you need to beware of.
Kiryuin Ragyo
I cannot stress this enough. BEWARE this woman! She is a monster beyond reckoning. A killer who plans murderer on a scale beyond any other the human race has ever produced.
She is the most evil creature in history, even worse than All For One.
Remember that, no matter what happens.
And finally… No matter what happens, know this. I made this gift for you. Not for anyone else. Not for some greater purpose, or some hidden agenda. This was all for you.
You are a kind soul, my child. The kindest I have ever seen. Don't let that burn out in you. Ever. No matter what is thrown your way.
Don't Lose Your Way.
And that was that.
Izuku took a look at the second paper, but there was no message there. No sentences, or more personal words beyond the instructions that the first paper piece had promised.
That was all he wrote.
Izuku felt… Strangely calm.
The hurts from the earlier events of the day were still there, but… It was seemingly far away right now.
Something else had come along and forced it down.
This letter… It was her father's writing… But that wasn't what had convinced her it was real. No, that had been the last part.
Don't lose your way.
It was not some sentence that had any longstanding special meaning in the relationship between father and daughter… But it was something that had immense weight for Izuku.
It had been the last words her father had ever said to her… The last words he'd ever said on this earth, as he bled out.
It was words that no one else had been there to hear.
The only question was… What did she do now?
Izuku lifted her hand to unlock the door, and go in to tell her mom about this letter. She had to know.
But as her hand closed around the doorknob, she found herself freeze. Then slowly, she pulled back.
Then found herself walking down the stairs of the apartment.
She wasn't entirely sure why she went about it all like this. She would tell her mom all about it, but… Afterwards. After she had seen what it was her dad had left for her for herself.
There were a lot of things to unpack from this letter, things that Izuku could not, but maybe her mom could. She had known her dad best of all.
But the part of him leaving behind one final gift for her was not one of them. She understood that part perfectly.
This… This was something between her and dad. His last will to her. Something personal that he had left for her, and her alone.
She wanted to see for herself what that something was.
Alone.
I
The trip itself only took a few hours by train, with Izuku nervous all the way.
As she rode, the scrawny girl was also confronted with flashes of something that she did NOT want to see right now.
Heroes and villains.
Now and again, she'd see flashes of hero activity as they passed by. Just a series of small flashes, then they were gone again.
Every flash hurt nonetheless. All Might's words were like a dagger in her heart, and every single time she saw a hero they passed by, the wound was shaken open anew.
She needed to let it go.
It's not wrong to dream. However… You need to be realistic, kid.
All Might's final words to her had stung so, so hard. So much harder than anything Kacchan had ever said.
Realistic… It was weird how that word could flip so much.
Yesterday, she would not have said that getting a letter from your dead father long after he died was realistic. At all. It was the kind of plot you saw in Anime and Manga, not in real life.
And yet, here in the now, she would now and again take out the letter and reread it, pondering on what it said, and wondering about what her dad had left for her.
A more childish part of her wondered whether it was about heroes. But for once, that part was quickly shut down by the more realistic side of her.
Her dad had been a scientist… But he'd not been some master of mechanics or robotics.
Whatever it was her dad had left behind for her was not some ironman suit, and she should not expect it to be. If she did… All she would do was setting herself up to have whatever it was her dad had left behind be poisoned by her own stupid, childlike expectations.
And she didn't want that. At all.
The final destination was Tokyo, or more specifically the outskirts thereof, where after a bit of wandering she found a… Big building.
She frowned.
Then looked down at the papers in her hands, before looking up at it again.
In the instructions, it was clearly marked that the building was abandoned, and would look as such, but it didn't look abandoned.
True, she couldn't see through the upper floor windows, standing in the shadows of the thing as she was, but the "courtyard" of the building was well-kept and clean, and the walls and windows told that someone had taken care to at least make sure it remained clean like that.
She hesitated for a bit, absolutely filled with indecision… Then decided she might as well try, and even if someone had moved in, she might be able to come to some understanding with the new owners. Who knew, maybe they knew her dad back when he was alive?
The big, heavy-looking front door was made of steel… But it wasn't locked and proved surprisingly easy to open.
"H-helllooo?"
No answer. Which was strange given there were clearly lights on here.
She looked around but didn't see anyone, or any sign of life, beyond the fact that there were no signs at all of decay.
Slowly, she began to make her way inside, following the instructions her father had left behind for her, as she delved deeper, and deeper inside what was starting to feel like an iron coffin.
The entire place was in perfect form, but there were absolutely no signs of human life.
Corridor after corridor, hallway after hallway, not a trace of life, nor any sign that there had been any life around here, other than the ever-present lights on the walls and above, and the shine of the polished steel.
To be honest it felt incredibly creepy and off-putting. It was a testament to just how deeply she wanted to see her father's gift for herself that the timid, scaredy cat kept pushing forward regardless.
Until finally, she came to the last room before her destination.
Here, finally, she found signs of life.
Opposite her was a wall of black steel, lined with another kind of light. Pulsating, red lights went through the wall, in what looked like some form of embroidery pattern.
The wall itself was completely unblemished and untouched… But the same could not in any way be used to describe the floor, the roof, or the walls around.
Huge gashes and cuts in the metal, spoke of massive attacks, that judging by the angles had been directed straight at the black wall, only to fail to break through it, and instead leaving all the punishment to befall the infinitely less impressive floor, roofs, and walls.
The entire area to the right was covered in soot and scorch marks, and one bit where the metal of the floor had actually melted down, revealing the black wall to go straight down into the floor.
Made sense. If this thing could simply be circumvented by digging around, there was no point in it.
If Izuku had built it, it would be a big square metal box, making sure that it was guarded against all 6 directions.
As it was though, Izuku stepped forward to the center of the thing, where the embroidered pattern formed together into a strange symbol.
The lock, as her father's instructions told her.
All she had to do was put her right thumb up against the center.
She had also read what came next, and so she bit her lip in preparation and winched as a sharp sting of pain bit into the thumb.
She did not pull back though, as the lock took a sample of her blood.
And then… It began disintegrating. She blinked, as in front of her, the entire black "Wall" suddenly began to turn to dust, leaving only the red lines left, revealing that what had looked like a wall, was in reality only a coating of some strange material.
The red lines did not falter, but eventually, they fell down to the floor, leaving only a simple door in the wall, uncovered and easily accessible.
She stared at it. Behind this door, her father had left her… Whatever it was he had left behind.
At that moment, it struck her just how deeply, utterly, and dearly she missed her father. He had always been one of the two big, eternal constants in her life. One of the two only people who had truly cared about her through her life as everything went wrong at school.
She reached out for the handle…
As her hand closed around it and prepared to pull it down, Izuku was suddenly bombarded by a horrible, ear-pitching, scream!
She startled, her head snapping towards the place she had just come down, the door ahead of her suddenly forgotten.
For a moment, fear and panic threatened to overwhelm her, but then the scream was followed up by another one, along with sobs of pain.
She was moving down the corridor without even thinking about it, despite the sudden and clear terror she felt in every nerve. If someone was screaming like that… Then there was a reason for it.
To Izuku's further shock the screams weren't from some far-off place. It was literally a room just down the hall to the right.
And judging by the state of the room as she peeked in, feeling utter and complete terror, she saw that the entire room was busted up. Huge sections of the steel wall had been ripped apart, metal pipes of varying lengths littered the floor, and steam was loudly and visibly pouring forth from larger broken pipes in the walls.
All of this had happened, while she was just a short bit away.
The source of the screaming though was in the middle of the room.
A teenage girl was lying on the floor, probably Izuku's own age, dressed in black clothing, and with high-tech booths, screaming her lungs out, as another figure in a white uniform stood over her, and was using something that seemed like an electrical shock stick on her.
If the figure was saying something, Izuku did not hear it over the loud sounds of the steam.
She did hear the woman though.
She saw the way she twisted, the pain on her face, the long, pink hair thrashing about, the frantic look on her face as a broken nose let forth a small torrent of blood.
She didn't think.
Instead, her body moved on it's own.
One of the room's countless metal pipes suddenly found itself in her hands as she approached the figure with the stick in a rapid, frantic sprint.
He did not hear a thing over the steam, and the girl's screams. To his misfortune.
The metal pipe hit straight across the back of the head.
The figure, a man Izuku could now see, went down from the impact immediately, crashing to the ground with a sound no one could hear.
For a moment, Izuku just stood there panting, and looking down at the two figures beneath her, not quite believing what she'd just done.
Izuku's focus shifted though, as the pink-haired girl coughed, then began blinking groggily.
What?
Izuku could not hear her of course, but she saw the motion of her lips.
Get her out of here. Get moving. Get both of you to safety.
Izuku immediately snapped out of the shock, though the fear remained strong as ever, as she began to realize just how far she'd have to go back with this girl before the exit.
Said action also proved an immense struggle, as Izuku tried to lift her off her feet so Izuku could support her with her shoulder.
That would have been a challenge even if she was in amazing shape. But she wasn't. She was a short, scrawny teenage girl, who had never had particularly good gym scores.
She might as well have weighed a ton, as Izuku was no more capable of lifting and carrying her at that weight than she was at her current.
Luckily for both of them though, the pink-haired girl suddenly shot up, a crazed, wild look in her golden eyes as she looked around, seemingly having come to her senses.
Which was good, because the man Izuku had hit over the head slammed his fist into the ground with enough force to make the room shake.
As he pulled himself to his feet, he began to transform, having obviously activated a quirk of some kind.
Time to go.
Izuku grabbed the rising girl and began to pull her up, and then, once she had stumbled to her feet, she began dragging her behind her.
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!
As they began running out into the corridor, she felt more than heard the man turn to make pursuit.
The fear was all-consuming, but she ran, rather than freeze, her survival instincts having very firmly chosen "Flight" as her means of survival.
Which was immediately halted, as they ran down the corridor, only to find that in front of them, pouring down the corridor that she had originally come, a dozen figures in white uniforms suddenly came pouring without a sound before she saw them in the flesh.
She did not consider the implications of that, instead, she dragged the pink-haired girl whose name she did not know down the only other passage between the newcomers, and the man behind them.
The room that until recently had had a black wall on the other side.
As she turned and ran inside, she felt something pass right behind her head with a force that made her hair being pulled behind whatever it was from the sheer force.
It had seemed impossible that her fear could have become even larger.
After running across the room like she had hellhounds at her heels, she slammed into the door, fumbled for the door handle, and grabbed, her hand slipped, and she grabbed again, and wrenched it open, hearing the clatter of feet behind her.
She ran straight inside… And slammed into a rail guard.
That one, brief halt in their movement was all it took.
Something hit Izuku right below the shoulder… And as it passed through her, it demolished muscle and bone alike, ripping apart her Scapula, Acromion, and her upper ribs in short order.
Izuku screamed as pain beyond imagination ran through her entire upper body, as her nerve endings tried to deal with having suddenly ended up with a gigantic hole in them.
That was only part of the bad things that happened to her in that moment though.
The shock from the projectile also went through her entire body, and also the(Very loose and faulty) railing she was standing up against, and Izuku suddenly found herself flying forward as the railing broke, going screaming down into the void.
Darkness immediately claimed her vision, and Izuku, with what energy her mind had, which was not occupied with trying to comprehend the insane pain that was wracking her body, was filled with immediate panic as the fall actually went on for a while.
The implications of falling for well over 10 seconds straight were very, very obvious, and Izuku at any point expected her fall to come to a complete and brutal halt.
Instead… She hit something soft, and quickly found herself buried in that something "Soft", the momentum of her fall slowed, and she instead found herself clawing her way out of whatever it was which she was now buried in.
She whimpered as something beneath her came loose from her movements, and once more she found herself falling, this time tumbling sideways down a small hill of whatever it was she had fallen on in the darkness.
The rolling fall came to a halt, as she hit the ground.
Under normal circumstances, this level of impact would have knocked the wind out of her.
Instead, it hit the still-open, raw hole in her body.
She screamed to the high heavens, the sound echoing across the darkness, bouncing off distant walls.
She sat up, heaving as her hand went up to the wound in a futile gesture, the insane pain biting through her entire body, and the blood seeping down to the floor in a small river.
Then, as she heaved and panted in pain, trying to come to terms with her injury now, before blood loss took her, a loud, "Slap!" Was heard. Right behind her.
It sounded like someone had bashed a piece of cloth against a wet surface. But that wasn't what immediately made Izuku freeze.
No, that was the closeness of the sound.
It came from just behind her. Right behind her back.
"Yess…"
She turned her head around despite the insane pain the motion brought her.
There, in the darkness, a series of green lights began to pulsate.
Right in front of her face.
"Nooo…. Please… No…" She felt tears begin to form in her eyes.
She was going to die. She'd miraculously cheated death earlier today, only for her to die here, here where her father's supposed gift was.
"More! I want more!"
Something sprang from the darkness, and in one move completely enveloped her.
She felt her clothes disintegrate, leaving her naked as the thing tightened it's grip on her, and then… Power.
A sense of pure, limitless Power surged through her.
She felt…. She felt it as bones regrew, and muscles reknit, as a flash of green became her world!
"Yesss…. I have waited for you… For so long…"
As she felt the power surge through her she felt a… a bond forming. Her very soul being knit together with something else!
I
"Damn it, Roy! We aren't supposed to kill anyone! Kiryuin-Sama wants any intruder captured alive!"
The one speaking, a shorter male in a white coat with stylized, red glowing boxing equipment glowered at his subordinate.
Both his gloves were also coated in red blood, easily visible against the internal glow of the equipment.
"Eh, she doesn't sound dead. Judging by those screams. Maybe something broke her fall. And even if she does die, we still got this one alive and well."
He shook the other one, whose arms he now had linked behind her back in an iron grip.
Said captive though wasn't paying much attention to the two of them, instead scanning the darkness below with a hungry gaze.
It was unnerving just how little she seemed to care about the very unfortunate things that were probably gonna befall her very, very soon.
Fukuroda turned to where her eyes were pointed, but if there was anything to see there, he couldn't make it out in the… Wait… There were some lights down below. Small lights, but they were there, and…
Ha saw several arcs of energy form and dissipate around the spot he was looking at. And then… A pillar of SEARING, crackling, green energy shot up from that spot, and punched straight into the sky, ripping it's way straight up through the entire building!
For a brief moment, the room below was lit up by the blue sky above, lighting up the entire room that they had been trying to get into for the better part of a year now in light.
What he saw then, in that brief, brief moment was mountains and mountains of piled-up clothing. Sailor uniforms, school uniforms, dresses, jackets, all piled up in heaps after heaps.
Then something hit the wall right by the small railway by the entrance with such force that the entire room shook just from the impact.
Fukuroda, Roy, and the pink-haired intruder all turned to look at the spot, where the teenage girl that Roy had so violently attacked had now slammed into, her grip digging deep into the steel to hold her up.
She then launched herself at the two of them.
Fukuroda brought up his gloves to hit a counter, only to freeze in that split second before it hit, as he realized what she was wearing.
Holy crap… That was just like Kiryuin-sama's-
With blistering speed, the girl avoided his attack, bypassed him, and did something behind him that made Roy scream.
As he whirled around, Fukuroda barely got a glimpse of her movement as she hoisted the other intruder into her arms, and then, in one leap, jumped all the way up through the hole, and out beyond his sight.
For a moment he just stared after her, mouth open.
This… This was going to end very poorly for him when he had to explain what the hell had happened here.
I
Izuku felt… Amazing!
She felt like truly, for the first time in her life, had come alive.
Getting out of the building was easy, skipping across the courtyard, then up and over buildings was a breeze.
She didn't even stop to take it all in.
She just kept going, the power inside of her begging to be let out, to be used, to be unleashed into the world.
Finally, having made a good 7 kilometers away from the building, Izuku finally stopped at the rooftop of a smaller building.
She gently let down the girl, who had been clutching herself to her quite strongly, on her feet.
"You okay?"
The girl, instead of answering, reached up, and casually set her own nose, making Izuku wince at the squelching sound and motion.
"Ahhh… That's better. But yeah, I'm fine."
She didn't look fine. Or rather, her body didn't look fine, her face already having several swollen bruises beginning to form, not to mention the nose, and judging by the way she stood, she had taken quite a beating beneath her black clothing.
Meanwhile, her face was energetic, full of energy, and looking Izuku over with fascination.
"Thanks for saving me back there!"
"No… No problem… What… What were you even doing in there?"
"Trying to find you!" The girl exclaimed cheerfully. "I saw you enter the place, and I wanted to warn you that people who try and jaywalk in there get thrown out on their ass, after getting their shit kicked in! So I followed after you."
Izuku immediately felt guilty about that little bit of knowledge.
Then… Her current state was her fault.
"Sorry, about what happened as a result of that…"
"Eh, don't sweat it. We all make our own choices. And the consequences thereof."
The girl looked so… Chipper for someone who had just gotten their shit beaten in. Like it hadn't even faced her.
It wasn't before now, looking her in the face that Izuku realized that the girl's eyes had sniper scope pupils. An enhanced sight quirk then.
Quirks.
She raised her hand up in front of her. A gloved hand. Then she clenched it, feeling the sheer power gathered in it, as bolts of what looked like green lightning danced around it.
"Like it? I knew you would. My creator said that you wanted power above all else!"
Izuku… Nodded.
She should probably feel more worried about the fact she was wearing a piece of suit that freaking talked, but at the moment, the fact she actually had real, actual superpowers overshadowed any and all concerns.
She opened her mouth to reply… Then thought it over, before asking a simple question.
"What… What did your creator look like?"
The pink-haired girl cocked her head as her suit answered.
"Well… He had a beard, an eyepatch, wore a white lab coat, was stooped, held a cane in one hand, and had a piercing green eye."
Yeah… That was her dad alright.
"So, it was my dad who created you then."
"It was?"
"Yeah…"
There were… So, so many questions she had. So many. But that mystery she knew the answer to at least.
This… Suit has been created by her dad, for her.
So she could actually achieve her dreams.
She felt the hint of tears in her eyes, though for once it wasn't tears of sadness or depression, but tears of joy.
"Who are you talking to?" The pink-haired girl asked, looking curious.
"What? Wait… You mean you can't hear him?"
"You mean the suit? Wait… Can it talk to you!? That is great! That means that not only is it capable of moving under it's own power, but it's also sentient! Fascinating!"
"...I think the fact it grants superpowers is far, far more noteworthy than any of that."
"Yeah, that part is amazing too! It's like the Venom symbiote from the spider-man comics! A superpowered, sentient suit… Just as actual clothing! Though I must say, the black suit looks much more practical, not to mention less exhibitionistic."
It took Izuku a few seconds before she caught that last part.
Then she looked down, actually taking in how the suit truly looked.
She had assumed it was a full-body suit, given the way the air against her skin felt.
It was not.
In any way.
It had the upper part of a jacket-like shirt around her upper chest, and her legs were covered in a set of leggings, all of which were covered in lines that pulsated a deep, bright green.
Between the two of those though… Between the two of those pieces, the "suit" was basically literal strings, metal bits, a short barely there skirt, and a set of panties, that all together, barely covered up her modesty.
Izuku immediately screamed in shock and embarrassment.
What the hell kind of suit was this!?