It was weird, inviting a ghost into his apartment, but Izuku already lived with eight inside his head; what was one more?

"You said you were the eighth biggest hero around?" Kurosaki asked him, strolling into the small living room of his apartment. "Is the pay gap that wide between you and whoever's in first?"

The green-haired hero chuckled, scratching the back of his neck and looking around his place. "It actually pays pretty well, but the rankings are more a formality than a position; the top ten get equal pay. I just try to be frugal with mine. Don't have much use for a big house."

No, but when you finally propose the big question to Uravity, the tiny little apartment isn't going to cut it, the voice of Banjo echoed in his head, along with a vibrating slap following it. Ow!

Thank you Nana, he spoke internally with a smile.

Take your time kid, the seventh user consoled him. You can date when you're ready, if it's her or someone else you find. We're still supporting your choices.

"Sorry to bother you with this," Kurosaki continued, walking down the short hallway of only two doors. "I'm pretty sure I don't have to eat while I'm a spirit, but I do need to sleep. If anyone else from the Soul Society was here, you wouldn't have to worry about this."

"I'm sorry that we don't have one of our own for you to visit," Izuku pardoned him. "It's making me worry where all of our souls are going, if you still have the power to send them. And as long as this Aizen is bound to that chair it's not like he can be a problem right? Our people in Tartarus will keep an eye on him and send word if that changes."

ping

Izuku twitched his head at the slight noise of Danger Sense. People weren't often in grevious danger long enough that he knew could entrust another hero to handle without him; his friends had hosted an intervention a few months after they all graduated before he stopped jumping at every warning. At least the constant hum of the new villain in Tartarus wasn't drowning out all warnings that it would affect his work.

The orange-haired man hummed distractedly as he looked between the two doors facing one another at the end. "If the souls are going somewhere, then there should be a Soul Society who senses us and comes to haze or threaten me or something. Aizen is better locked away somewhere no one could reach him." He reached for the door on his left, twisting the knob open. "I'll see him again tomorrow, make sure he…"

Izuku watched Kurosaki's frustrated expression unfold into a shocked, flat look, and it took the green-haired man a few seconds to burn up and remember the All-Might stocked walls that were his personal room. "Guest room is on the right," he strained out with a cough. "That's mine."

Kurosaki closed the door slowly, peering across the hall back to Izuku as he turned to the other door. "I can see that," he muttered, before disappearing into the guest room.

It's nothing to be ashamed of, the voice of the same man whose posters were plastered across his room assured him. It's humbling to know I'm still admired.

"I can hear your grin," Izuku mumbled back, stripping off his gloves and tossing them into the open chest. "I'm moving the Endeavor poster over my desk."

You wouldn't.

Izuku eyed the large framed artwork above his couch. "You're right, it looks better as is." He tapped the sides of his iron boots, detached the braces around his shins, and stepped out of them and down the hall towards the two rooms. He found Kurosaki seated on the guest bed, his sword propped against the wall across from him, and staring it down silently. "Do you have a moment?"

Kurosaki turned his head his way slightly — just enough for Izuku to notice the full white of his eyes — before he blinked and they were a normal auburn once more. "Sure. What's up?" The older man fell back on the bed, his corporeal form still bouncing on the mattress as he laid down.

"Well, I was thinking that we don't know how long you'll be here." That grim reminder brought a hardened look to the orange-haired spirit's face. "It might be a while before someone comes for you or this Aizen, from your world or mine." A concept he was still struggling to come to terms with, that only introduced more questions than answers. "So if you are going to be here for a while, I thought it would be best to explain a bit about my world for you. And if I can learn a bit about yours, so I can better understand who this Aizen is and what I can do to help you with him. I can start, if it's fine with you."

Kurosaki took a look towards his sword, as though the two were having a debate on the offer, before the orange-haired man nodded. "Sure. Might be useful to know what I've got around me if I need it. What's first?" Already having his answer in mind, Izuku shot a tendril of Blackwhip from his wrist, grappling the chair across the room and bringing it over to sit in. The soul in his guest bed blinked at the display. "Forgot you could do that."

"This is an ability of my quirk," Izuku began, holding the rope from his wrist in his other hand. "Quirks are a part of our genetics; most people are born with one, though we don't know what they'll be like until we're a few years old. You asked me if seeing you had something to do with my 'zanpakuto,' so I guessed what we can do come from two different sources. My quirk is a strong one, so I'll help you out as best I can if Aizen breaks loose and we have to fight, but not everyone's quirks are created equal, and if you're so convinced your friends can keep Shigaraki at bay, I can't promise you so many here will be able to help with this man."

The Soul Reaper rose an eyebrow at the sight in front of him, rising to sit as he stared at the Blackwhip. "Huh. Sounds more like a Fullbring ability." Upon noticing Izuku's raised brow, he continued, "It's a power in my world, one you're also born with under…conditions, and has a way of being whatever it wants. Used to have one myself, but lost that and haven't tried getting it back since. Not much of a need when everyone bad is gone and other people can handle it."

ping

Izuku pinched a frown at that. "You leave the work to others?"

"Hell no I don't! If a Hollow pops up in town and causes trouble I'll take care of it but it's the Soul Society's job in the first place. I'm just a substitute; they station someone in town who is supposed to deal with it instead. And I've cleaned up plenty of their messes before, because it just had to boil down to me. But I've got half a century before I'm dead and on their payroll, so until then I'm living my life as a human instead of some soldier. Don't need all those fancy powers "

That was a lot of terminology and specifics dropped without explanation onto Izuku's lap, but there was a gist to it he understood. "So you're more like an intern in my world. Hero agencies can't allow students to fight or deal with villains or crime without us or in our place, outside of extreme circumstances. Had to do a bit of that myself growing up, but I try now to make sure none of my interning students experience that."

"You dissect everything that much?" Kurosaki asked him, almost teasingly in tone. A tone that worked in plucking a blush and an uneasy chuckle from the green-haired man.

"Sorry, it's a habit of mine — a bit of a hobby these days. Moving on; what can you tell me about Aizen? You said he's a ghost too, right? But why could everyone else in Tartarus see him?"

Kurosaki dipped his head down with a hum and spun his hand in the air. "Aizen has something called the Hogyoku. It's like a separate soul fused with him, though not fully. Hat n' Clogs said it acts off suggestion and convincing, and Aizen used it to try and evolve himself. It's possible it made him into a hybrid of a living creature and a soul; I'm not too sure myself." He muttered under his breath, "Rukia's shitty art would actually come in handy right now," probably not intending for Izuku to hear it.

How reassuring, the voice of the second user deadpanned in the number eight hero's head. Another All For One attempting to evolve his own body. If he's already fused with it, then how did they manage to capture him?

"How did you stop him then?" Izuku further prodded. "If he has something to evolve himself and make him stronger, what could capture him?"

"Himself," Kuroaski answered plainly. "I fought Aizen before, with a power I can't get again. It was more than he had at the time, and it was enough to convince him and the Hogyoku to consider giving up their plans. He didn't, but the Hogyoku did and took back the power it gave him; it gave us an opening. Apparently it's stuck to his body — old farts in Central couldn't remove it — so he's probably spent his time in prison mending his relationship with a rock to make himself stronger again."

The souls of his mentors prodded again, so Izuku vocalized for them, "So how do we stop him if he does break out?"

"You run." The orange-haired man stared into Izuku's soul with his piercing gaze. "His spiritual pressure would kill anyone he got close to, if he wasn't wrapped up like that. The mortals in this world won't be able to fight that, no matter what 'quirk' any of you have. If he breaks free? You run as far as you can. I'll deal with him myself."

ping

Izuku twitched his eye again, leaving the brief warning to the heroes still on the clock. He leaned over his lap, intertwining his fingers between his knees. "I'm a hero. It's not my job to run, it's my job to protect people."

"Then grab who you can while you go. None of you have any power to stand close to him, other than you. You move everyone you can, and I'll fight him. A cue ball taught me a technique to make up for all the powers I lost from my last fight, something that should be able to take care of Aizen this time. Might not kill him, but it will keep him from fighting if he does break out."

It still didn't sit right with Izuku. He accepted relying on his friends and not robbing them of the responsibility and control of the job of a hero, after all he spent shouldering everything during their time at U.A., but relying on a stranger from another world for everything wasn't part of the agreement he signed at his intervention. He still knew little about Kurosaki, but maybe that came with the withholding of his own name from the other man. Placing his full trust on a man claiming to be a ghost that most people around him couldn't see bar one of his friends thus far was not an excuse that would fly with everyone else.

"Why were you sent here then?" the green-haired man voiced his own thoughts. "Why were both of you sent here? Yahweh — it sounded like — sent him and you, but for what? Why would he send you to another world? You're a human with the power to turn into a ghost, but he's a well-known criminal supposed to be locked away for his actions. Why move him and then bring you with—"

DANGER

The room around them shook for only a second, but the waves that rolled through the air never went away. Danger Sense blasted in his ears, twisting his head towards the nearest shore of the country, and Kurosaki looked with him, squishing his brows into a glare. The eighth-ranked hero could hear the sirens of cars ring out from the sudden shake, and faintly the voice of civilians outside only drowned by the chaos of the souls in his own head.

The giant sword across the room flew from the wall and into Kurosaki's waiting hand. "For that."

Stone and machine crumbled around him. The gate tore itself apart for him. Tartarus broke apart into the sea behind him, and Sosuke marched forward onto the man-made road leading towards the mainland, peeling his prisoner garb from his body. It was easy to burst his spiritual pressure out only to incapacitate the mortals in his vicinity, without destroying the land around him. Kurosaki would feel it in the air if he let out all at once; it was best Sosuke managed his time freeing himself of the limiters Central 46 placed over him without interruption.

He could feel the souls rising out of the sea, worming their way through the air and into the Hogyoku. It pulsed on his chest in a faint light — light which rippled over his body until his bare skin was covered in a new black garb with bottoms that resembled Kurosaki's shihakusho and a top more akin to his time in Hueco Mundo.

"A factory reset, I suppose?" he asked aloud, knowing his chest would only respond in another pulse of light. "Zero Squad dresses like any other captain in the Soul Society, so it is best we aim for something better. Maybe Yhwach was given an attire for his position as the new king; that would be more fitting."

The Hogyoku vibrated gingerly and Sosuke smiled, rising into the air slowly. "And if these mortal souls function like any other, then they too have a Soul Society to find if not the one we know. And a King stringing all the realms into their places."

He gazed across the land in the distance before him, turning from one end of its shoreline to the other. "The energy is much weaker than in Karakura Town. We will need many more souls if we are to enter the King's realm. The entirety of Japan should suffice for entry, and that soul-keeper would make a wonderful key to store it all in. Let us pay him and Kurosaki a visit first."