"You're really him. The one from the festival."

Izuku had been hearing similar statements all morning, since before he'd even gotten on the train, but it still made him blush! Was this what pro heroes had to deal with all the time? Wow! Izuku couldn't imagine… Well, he could, but… The point was, he didn't see any harm in turning and talking to the latest person to recognize him.

'The one from the festival' was a lot nicer than 'bone breaking kid,' after all!

(And both were better than 'useless deku.')

Now, it was a little different being approached on the street, in the rain, only a few blocks from UA, rather than just being acknowledged by fellow commuters, most of whom he saw every day, and coming out of an alleyway to do it was strange, but the guy didn't look like a villain. Not that there was any particular villain look! That was to say, the person coming from the alley didn't look threatening. He was thin, frail, even, and almost baseline human in appearance, with wavy brown hair, a nice shirt and a blazer, and a plain black umbrella. The only things that stood out about him were that he had two pupils and vividly cyan irises in each eye, and that his fingernails were painted that exact same color. Unless it wasn't paint, and actually part of his quirk? Maybe a five-point or other specialized-contact quirk with a visual component? Not that Izuku should assume!

Oh! And he should really respond instead of just standing there, staring.

"Y-yep! That's me! Th-the bone- bone breaking kid." He smiled at the man, as brightly as he could.

"You look the same. I was worried you would be… different."

"Ah, well, don't worry! I didn't get hurt that badly!" He was still alive, right? Even if Recovery Girl had said she wouldn't heal him anymore… "I'm- I'm totally okay! But– Thank you for your support, mister!"

He bobbed a quick bow, then paused, unsure how to end this interaction. A stranger being concerned about him was… not quite a first, but… it usually ended pretty fast.

"I just… really want to shake your hand. Please." The man held his right hand out, past the cover of his umbrella. "It would make me so happy…"

Izuku was immediately on guard. Maybe shaking hands upon first meeting someone new had been common in the past, but since the advent of quirks, it had become something reserved for the end of a meeting, one where people got to know each other fairly well, if that. Handshake events with celebrities required in-depth background checks and squeaky-clean records, and even then the celebrities usually wore gloves. Too many quirks were touch-based, too many quirks were destructive, or even just inconvenient, for the average person to feel okay with that kind of contact with strangers.

"I- I don't know," said Izuku, taking a step back. He didn't want to be rude, and probably people asked heroes that all the time, but this was starting to get, uhm, uncomfortable. "I- I mean! I've still got all these bandages, so, it's not very, um, good for me to be doing things with my hands!" He glanced at his own umbrella and cringed a little. "You know how it is. Injuries!"

The stranger's expression - which Izuku was kind of having a hard time interpreting - didn't change. He also didn't put his hand down.

Against his better judgment, Izuku leaned forward. "Are you– Are you okay? Mister?"

The man crumpled suddenly. Izuku dropped his umbrella and rushed to his side, pulling out his phone. "I'm calling an ambulan–!"

The man's hand shot out, grabbing Izuku's wrist. His nails, sharper than they looked, dug into Izuku's bandaged arm, deep enough to draw blood, and–

.

Several blocks away, well within the confines of UA, Yagi Toshinori's eyes rolled up, into the back of his head, and he fell out of his seat, thoroughly derailing the staff meeting he'd been participating in.

.

"Pardon?" said Nezu. Answering the phone when perched on Aizawa's shoulders was, perhaps, not entirely polite, but it was that or be underfoot while all of his very tall employees paced restlessly outside the nurse's office. "One of our students was involved in what?"

This, of course, got the attention of absolutely everyone in the hallway. Excellent!

Not the student being involved in the incident, of course, but redirecting the staff's attention to a problem that they could actually affect.

"Yes, yes, I will be there shortly," he said. "Thank you for bringing this to our attention so promptly, Officer Tamakawa!" He hung up. "It appears as if one of our students was attacked by a villain on their commute and had an interesting reaction to the villain's quirk. Aizawa, Inui, I'll need you to head to the hospital to confirm the student's identity and to provide support."

"Support?" asked Aizawa, both his eyebrows going up.

"The quirk in question has a psychological dimension, and there's a worry that the student might lash out and injure themselves or others when they wake up."

"Ugh," said Aizawa. "Inui, you'll have to drive. My eyes still aren't back to normal."

"Very good!" said Nezu, jumping down. "I will have the police send the relevant information directly to your phone!"

.

"Takashima Takuto," said Tsukauchi, sliding into the chair across the table. "I have to say, I'm disappointed to see you again."

Takashima flexed his hands inside the special gloves the police force used to block his class of touch-based quirks and muttered unintelligibly.

"Do you remember the terms of your release?" asked Tsukauchi.

Takashima suddenly leaned forward, chest pressed flat against the heavy table between them. "You don't understand! I had to!"

"We'll get to that in a moment. Do you remember the terms of your release?"

"I-" Takashima leaned back. "I wasn't to use the active part of my quirk anymore."

"That's not entirely accurate. You're missing a few parts."

Takashima swallowed and began to bounce his leg up and down. "I was- I had to join the Fujitani Hospital psychiatric outpatient program, and I couldn't miss any appointments or medications."

"And?"

"And I had a- a work release where I could use my quirk… the active part of my quirk… if I had the… informed consent of the person, and approval of the hospital psychiatric board."

"Did you have either of those things when you used your quirk earlier today?"

"... No."

"So," said Tsukauchi, lacing his fingers together. "Explain to me what happened."

"I was– It was– It was self defense!"

Tsukauchi raised an eyebrow. "You're claiming you were attacked?"

"Yes. Yes."

"By a hero student?"

"... Yes."

"Who you've never met before today?"

"It was– It was out of nowhere."

"Alright. Where are your injuries, Mr. Takashima?"

"... What?"

"The boy you're accusing of attacking you made it to the final eight in the UA Sports Festival. The arena had to be rebuilt after he and his last opponent were done with it. I find it difficult to believe that you were able to get away from him unscathed if he did attack you. Would you like to try again?"

"I- I- But if I- I had to, don't you see? I've never seen anyone like him before!"

Tsukauchi sighed. "Can you explain that statement?"

"I saw him… Midoriya… I saw. With my quirk. On the TV. The sports festival. I saw him and I… didn't believe it, at first. I'd never seen anything quite like that… The figments, they were hardly figments… The were… even more than Miss Inoue… almost real even without me… I had to."

"Mr. Takashima, you recall that Miss Inoue almost died because of your reckless quirk use?"

"I was following the rules," said Takashima. "I told her what my quirk did. I was a good psychiatrist. This will help him, too, Midoriya."

"We have no idea what the long term effects on Mr. Midoriya will be," said Tsukauchi. "As it stands, it sounds like you stalked him, ambushed him, and used your quirk on him without his consent."

"I don't… I had to. I had to make them real, once I saw them."

"As it stands, it is recognized that you're suffering from Compulsive Quirk Use Disorder, so, per your prior agreement with the prosecutor's office, you'll be remanded into a residential psychiatric program later today. Your lawyer's been contacted, and should be able to give you more details." Tsukauchi stood up.

"But," said Takashima, weakly, "I had to."

"No," said Tsukauchi, "you didn't."

.

"A bit harsher than usual," observed Akabane.

Tsukauchi scowled. "He's almost killed half a dozen people with his quirk, and he always says the same thing, and his mother's family always gets him out of facing real consequences. I'm tired of seeing him. Mental illness is not an excuse for mutilating people. This could have been prevented if the prosectors pushed for real intervention instead of that joke of a work release. There are medications he could be taking!" Tsukauchi angrily yanked a handful of paperwork out of the file folder on his desk and started filling it in.

"Still," said Akabane.

"Midoriya is…" He let out a sharp sigh. "A friend of mine's been mentoring the kid. I don't really know him, but I know about him, and I don't think my friend is going to take it well."

"Ah," said Akabane.

"It's just– Do you know what happened to Miss Inoue? She was a patient of his, when he still had his license to practice. She had delusions of having worms crawling under her skin, eating her alive. She was lucky she didn't have a detailed picture of what those worms looked like. They fell apart pretty fast. Mrs. Yamaguchi was another one of his victims; he convinced her to go off her antipsychotics so she could confront her hallucinations of her abusive husband. That stuck around a bit longer. Those are the worst two, but they're not the reason he got put on probation. He started using his quirk on other people's patients, and they reported him."

"Nasty. But it sounds like he has a problem, too."

"Yeah," said Tsukauchi. "I just wish he'd gotten help for it faster."

.

"Usually," said Dr. Aoki, as he led Aizawa and Hound Dog through the hospital, "the figments Mr. Takashima creates aren't so… lasting. Or detailed. Most of them lack significant internal organs or have other flaws that cause them to fall apart within a relatively brief period of time. Their creation also usually doesn't take such a toll on the host. I suspect the two things are related, but, well. You can see why we're so concerned."

"What kinds of figments are we talking about here?" asked Hound Dog.

"It's hard to say, precisely. Doctor - excuse me - Mr. Takashima worked with a broad spectrum of patients with an equally broad spectrum of disorders. If I had to guess, I would imagine some form of schizophrenia - that disorder can cause a wide range of detailed hallucinations - or Dissociative Identity Disorder - although that diagnosis has been controversial for years. Since the pre-quirk era at least." Aoki's hands fluttered. "We're far more concerned about physical ramifications, anyway, which is why we called you here. We have no idea how these figments might react to Mr. Midoriya or each other. We have them in separate rooms for now."

Aizawa sighed. "What are the figments of? What do they look like?"

"That," said Officer Tamakawa, who was escorting them, "is a whole extra problem." He stopped and opened a door, briefly. Aizawa and Hound Dog looked in. What was lying in the bed was unmistakable.

Tamakawa shut the door quickly.

"You see?" he asked.

"Was that a teenage All Might?" asked Hound Dog faintly.