Shards of Power
Chapter 3
-Izuku-
Gulping slightly, Izuku stepped out of the car behind his mom as they stood outside the towering walls of UA. They'd gotten an email from Nezu and Recovery Girl, asking them to come to the school so they could run a couple tests on his quirk factor and make sure it was stabilizing.
"It's fine Izuku." His mom squeezed his hand gently, "You know Mr. Nezu and Miss Recovery Girl are nice, they'd have let us know if there was really anything to worry about."
"Y-yeah." Izuku nodded nervously as they walked through the gate, their guest passes ensuring the barrier didn't slam into place.
"Hey there little listener!" the bright and bombastic Present Mic was waiting for them, "Nezu said we'd be having guests today."
"H-hi." Izuku waved nervously to the grinning Hero, holding out three autograph books as Present Mic happily signed all three.
"For Neito and Mezo?" his mom asked, as she noted the extra autograph books, giggling at his sheepish nod.
"They're lucky to have a friend like you then little listener!" Mic grinned, "Now come on, we'd best get moving. Recovery Girl does not like to be kept waiting." Tucking the books away, Izuku followed the hero, his mom's firm grip on his hand keeping him from getting distracted and falling behind.
"Ah, glad to see you made it without any issue." Recovery Girl smiled at him as they entered her office, offering him a gummy with a smile as he took it shyly.
"You said you wanted to check on Izuku's quirks?" his mom asked as he chewed the gummy, waving goodbye to Present Mic who was heading out.
"Yes," Recovery Girl nodded as she finished setting up some machines, "I've never seen a situation like Izuku's before, so I'd rather be cautious and make sure everything is settling in alright. So Izuku, first thing first is I want you in this machine." Recovery Girl gestured to a shiny white pod "It's designed to test for quirk factor levels."
"Okay." Izuku nodded, trusting the doctor as he got in the machine, having handed his stuff to his mom as the pod closed.
-Nezu-
"So, that's the boy?" All Might hummed thoughtfully as they observed Midoriya through the window, the number one passing the autograph books over to Gran Torino who huffed but signed them as well.
"Yes, that's young Midoriya." Nezu nodded, grimacing at the sight of the litany of scars on the child's body.
What made it worse was just how many weren't from the villain attack and subsequent surgery.
"Kid seems to be getting a handle on those new quirks of his though." Gran remarked, handing the booklets back to a grinning Present Mic who walked back out, the Voice Hero having nicked the three books and tracked down every Hero Currently in the building to get them to sign. The man always did have a soft spot for kids.
"I'd hope so given the analytical abilities he's shown." Nezu huffed, "A brain like that for breaking down and understanding quirks? If he keeps up with that level of growth in the ability, then I might train him up as my successor."
"Yours?" All Might blinked in surprise.
"Every Hero needs a retirement plan and I want to ensure I leave the school in good hands." Nezu sniffed haughtily, "I can't exactly put Aizawa in charge. He'd expel the entire school in a day."
"So, what do we say if people find out about us training the kid?" Torino grunted, "Last thing we want is for someone like All for One to thin we're training this oaf's successor."
"Simple, we tell them the truth." All Might shrugged blasé as Torino spun around and gaped, "We heard about the incident and that one of the organs, and subsequent quirks, was from someone who was very important to the both of us. Neither of us has any family left, so us training the last connection to someone we both cared for isn't exactly unreasonable."
"…Nezu, call security, we have an impostor." Torino ignored All Might's sulking, "That was actually intelligent so we know it's not really All Might."
"Must you always pick on me?" All Might crossed his arms grumpily as Nezu grinned.
"Yes, yes I must." Nezu sipped his tea as Mic entered the room just as Recovery Girl was wrapping up with the Midoriya family, Mic giving the books back to a surprised child who quickly started bouncing up and down in excited gratitude. It was certainly what Midnight would call 'adorable'. Seeing Mic lead the civilian duo back out the building, Nezu refilled his tea and poured a new cup for Recovery Girl who entered a moment later. Midoriya's reports compiled and ready in the youthful heroine's arms.
"So, how are things looking?" Nezu worked to keep himself calm, hoping that Recovery Girl had been able to figure out if there were any lingering embers in Midoriya's body.
"The embers are there." Recovery Girl nodded as she started putting test results on the table, "But they're being used up."
"Used up?" Torino's eyebrows scrunched up in confusion, "What on earth is that boy doing to use up the embers of One for All?"
"Epigenetics." Recovery Girl deadpanned.
"Bless you." All Might offered before getting smacked in the head with her cane "Ow!"
"Oh hush, you deserved that." Recovery Girl huffed, "But the quirks are being merged with him more than they were before."
"Wait, I thought they were already merged." Torino frowned, "What's the difference?"
"Before, the quirks were still coming from those organs." Recovery Girl explained, "Think of them like the world's most macabre support gear. The organs housed the quirk, and he used them. But now, they're being incorporated into his DNA at a rapid pace thanks to the embers." Recovery girl put up two side by side images, "Back at the hospital, they made sure to run plenty of tests on his DNA to figure out of our little cover story was actually true or not."
"Yes, I remember." Nezu nodded, the doctor who had called them had been the one to do those tests by himself as, currently, the only ones outside the room who knew the truth were the doctor in question, the Midoriyas, and the Government agencies who'd been informed before he was read in.
"Well thanks to that machine Toshinori got from David Shield, I did my own tests." Recovery Girl continued, "His DNA is showing the markers for these quirks now, at least the start of them."
"So, they're just stabilizing more? Is that what this means?" All Might scratched his head, "I've never really been all that good at biology."
"It means more than that." Recovery Girl thankfully didn't hit the poor man this time, "Take that one lung he had replaced. With this change, his other lung has a high likelihood of doing the same ability, boosting what he can do with that breathing quirk. His eyes might end up having it where both eyes can do both quirks instead of one each. Hell, they might even combine somehow. I doubt he'll ever reach the full levels of what their original users were capable of, except perhaps for Nana's heart, his eyes, and maybe that lung; but they're likely to grow stronger than we originally intended."
"It also means if someone else figures this out, they could potentially keep experimenting on the kid." Torino clutched his cane, "The kid still has one original lung. What if someone cut that out and put a new one in to see if the kid got another power? Or waited until these quirks all 'bonded' to his DNA and swapped every one of those donated body parts out for something new. What we had before was one thing, what this is now is just asking for Victor Frankenstein to open Pandora's Box."
"You always did love quoting the classics." Nezu shook his head, trying to hide his nerves as he prodded at Torino who still held the 'record' for UA's grumpiest classic literature teacher.
"I'm serious Nezu." Torino didn't rise the bait.
"Then we keep these results to ourselves." Nezu didn't back down, "We know the truth, but we were already planning to hide the true nature of the boy's quirks from the world. So, for now we just train the boy like you were always planning to." He had been serious about Izuku potentially becoming his successor after all.
