Izuku had a lot of text messages, mostly from Kacchan. He hadn't managed read any since maybe seven in the morning the previous day. When he'd come back to his hotel in the afternoon to take his nap before the mission in Hosu, he'd checked to make sure there were no emergencies, then purposefully turned the device off so it didn't distract him and keep him from sleeping.
Yesterday, 8:55 am: "Nerd. Nerd. Why do I listen to you nerd?"
Yesterday, 9:30 am: "Best Jeanist is crazy and so are all the people who work for him and probably Gang Orca too"
Yesterday, 9:45 am: "Definitely Gang Orca too"
Yesterday, 10:43 am: "HOLY SHIT I'M ON FIRE!!!"
What in the world? Why... under what circumstances would it have made sense for Kacchan to text Izuku that information? What did he expect Izuku to do about it? He couldn't have really been on fire, because that wasn't the sort of thing that you texted a friend in another city about before stopping, dropping and rolling.
Yesterday, 11:15 am: "Never mind I am never speaking of this again if you ask about this I'll say I don't know what you're talking about"
Yesterday, 6:42 pm: "Well this has been an interesting day here but you still haven't answered so are you doing secret spy stuff or what"
Today, 12:42 am: "Nerd I know you're probably sleeping and so should I but holy shit have you seen Hosu"
Yes, yes he had. He was right there when it was blowing up.
Today, 12:52 am: "why am I not in gedd but I gotta see what happens"
Good question. If one could not spell the word "bed" even with the aid of autocorrect one ought to
head there immediately.
Today, 8:32 am: "have you seen the video of Stain getting arrested yet it's chilling"
Stain got arrested? What? When? By who?
Today, 10:32 am: "they're saying there were UA students involved in fights with Stain last night before he got caught please tell me that wasn't you"
Izuku winced. "Sorry, Kacchan," he muttered.
Today, 11:15 am: "could you at least let me know you're alive"
Today, 11:25 am: "Best Jeanist says that Aizawa says that you're alive but I want to hear you say you're alive"
Today, 12:15 pm: "please?"
Izuku responded promptly. "I just got back in. I was out with Kesagiri Man last night. We were in Hosu so, yeah, I might have been in a knife fight with Stain. I'm fine but I'm about to go to bed so I'm not going to see any more messages for a while." Izuku sent a quick message to his mother as well, just checking in. He didn't mention Stain to her. He ought to tell her and he would but it wasn't something he wanted to do out of the blue over text.
Izuku had a few messages from Ojiro. They were short and to the point.
Yesterday, 12:35 pm: "Internships have been interesting so far. I will have a lot to tell you about when we return to UA."
Today, 8:22 am: "It is a frightening world we live in, isn't it? I am glad I was nowhere near Hosu last night and I hope the same was true for you."
Today, 12:25 pm: "If you could text Bakugou at your earliest convenience? He seems convinced that you are a trouble magnet and must have been caught up in the Hosu business."
Izuku sent Ojiro a message confirming that he was fine and that, yes, he might be a trouble magnet as he had indeed been caught up in the Hosu business.
Shouji's only message was from today at lunch.
Today, 12:23 pm: "Bakugou seems to be worried about you if you could send him a message it would probably be good for my phone bill"
Izuku confirmed his status and suggested Shouji change to an unlimited plan because "it'll be worth it I think."
That taken care of, Izuku drew the curtains and slithered under his comforters. He'd get something more to eat when he woke up. Hopefully he was through with MLA related nightmares for the day.
"I don't care," Izuku said, "what you know or don't know. I care about what your friend is going to
know."
"What's in it for me?" the information broker folded his arms. "It's not as if he'll thank me for sending you his way."
"Let me be perfectly plain with you," Izuku said, silk-smooth. "You have, by associating with this group, thrown your lot in with that monster. If we were in Black Forest you would be executed for what you have done and allowed to be done. Selling people, selling souls. What's in it for you?" The greenette pulled a gun from a concealed pocket so quickly the man before him blanched. Clearly he hadn't expected someone like Izuku to be carrying a firearm. "Your miserable life."
"You think you can shoot me and make it out of here without my body guards blowing you to pieces?"
"I think you'll be too dead to care about what happens to me. Now, send me on my way to someone who has a better idea than you of where I can find All For One and no shots need be fired."
The broker snarled, gritting his teeth. "Fine! Here!" he scribbled an address on a piece of paper. "Be aware that if it's happens to be false you will sorely regret it. Perhaps I won't have the chance
to make you regret it, but I have friends--"
Izuku threw himself to the ground as he saw the broker's finger twitch--a signal to his guards. The greenette was an infinitely better shot than these thugs, but they got lucky. Bastards. Fire screamed along his ribs, threatening to tear him apart. Even so, the fight was over in moments, both opponents incapacitated by shots to the legs and shoulders. Izuku zip cuffed the broker to a chair and, with the last of his strength, pulled out his burner and placed a call. "Good morning, Akiko," he said, panting heavily as the pain and dizziness mounted. He'd been shot plenty of times before, but that didn't make it easier to deal with.
"Who the hell is this? How do you know this number?"
"You know me. I was the one who arranged your new life after you found yourself my guest on the seventh of August three years ago." There was a soft gasp at the end of the line. "If you can come to this address, should be just be a few streets over from where you are now," he'd made sure that he had some potential allies nearby, although he really hadn't expected to need them for this... he was quite bitter about his bad luck, "heal everyone in the room, zip cuff everyone but the unconscious, green-haired teenager to something sturdy and then leave without a second glance I will make it worth your while."
"Worth my while how?" Akiko inquired.
"What do you want? I can probably get it for you."
"Immigration documents, passport, social security number. I want to move to the US and they'd never let someone like me in without incentive."
That could be arranged with his connections. "I can almost certainly do that for you, although it will," he coughed, choking on blood, "take a few months, possibly. I can promise you my best effort which, you know, will be considerable."
"Heh. I would have come anyway, you know, without the bribe." Huh. Well, regardless, it wasn't as if he minded doing something nice for her. She was certainly going to earn it. "Where are you?"
The greenette woke with a hiss, clawing at his chest, fingers running over the scars Akiko's healing had left behind, the only evidence of the shots that could well have killed him. He didn't see any reason to restrain himself, turning onto his chest and sobbing into his pillow from the shock and lingering echo of pain. This was another memory of his deeds during his missing week, not the distant past.
"All For One," Izuku muttered. "That's the name, the one I was looking for, maybe the one I wanted revenge against if Stain's word can be trusted. A human trafficker and worse... I said "selling souls..." When I was at the bunker I talked about the "Soul Stealer..." Is the Soul Stealer All For One? Whose perspective was I speaking from at the bunker, then, Bit Weasel or my kidnapper or both or neither or are they the same person? But Bit Weasel just can't still be alive; that wouldn't make any sense."
It sounded as if All For One were like War Dog, the villainous equivalent of underground, a terrifying and lethal enemy that most frontliners would never have heard of. Konno might know the name... it would be worth asking. "I asked Akiko to heal everyone there," Izuku whispered. "The ones who shot me, too..."
Whoever had body snatched Izuku had immense power in the underworld, clearly, the kind of power that could manipulate the immigration systems of powerful countries. "Why me then?" Izuku muttered. "There was nothing special about me except that I'm quirkless and that's not a reason to want to kidnap someone using a possession quirk. You want someone with the most powerful quirk you can find, don't you? So why me?" There was no reason to specifically target a quirkless person for this kind of mission, there just wasn't...
Unless... well, quirkless people disappeared all the time. Kacchan thought Izuku had killed himself, was utterly convinced of it until Izuku reappeared. That... might explain it. If the kidnapper had never intended to give Izuku back, if the kidnapper had intended to dispose of him when all of this was over... people would have quickly stopped asking questions about what happened to the quirkless hero wannabe from Aldera Junior High. Perhaps he had just been chosen because he was disposable.
But... that didn't seem to make sense. "A bit ironic that they went on that tirade about human trafficking being an execution offense in Black Forest when they kidnapped me to use as a battle slave," Izuku muttered. "Do as I say not as I do... but still, I wasn't treated badly. The possessor didn't really seem... concerned by potentially mortal injuries, so my health probably didn't affect them at all, they could just abandon me and snatch someone else, but even so I wasn't treated as disposable, either because they needed me specifically for something or just... because that's not something they would do, and they called in a potentially massive favor to make sure I survived."
Well, at least he knew where he got his bullet scars and had some idea of what he had been doing, or trying to do, during his missing week. Did he succeed in finding this All For One? Did he get what he was after? Where was the intersection between Bit Weasel's war memories and this kidnapper with a vendetta against All For One? Izuku could make wild guesses; perhaps the "monster" Bit Weasel fought at Utapa, the "wolf in a prim suit" was also the "Soul Stealer" and All For One, but even if that were true, if that were an element in common it still didn't explain anything. It answered part of the "who" but not the what, when, how or why. If the "monster" and
"Soul Stealer" and "All For One" referred to the same entity, it might make more sense for All For One to be an organization rather than a person given the time spans involved... There still wasn't enough information to say anything concrete. All he could do was guess.
It was almost nine in the morning. Izuku had recovered his missed night of sleep with interest. He turned his attention to his phone and, after answering a text from Konno saying that, yes, he would meet him for lunch, began to scroll through the news while gnawing on an energy bar.
Stain was arrested. That was what Katsuki said... there was an article on the Hosu Messenger website detailing the events.
"The infamous Hero Killer: Stain is, at last, in custody and on his way to prison. Amidst the chaos in Hosu last night when at least four quirked entities--who or what they were is yet to be determined--caused untold millions of yen in property damage and the deaths of at least seven people, Stain faced off first against our local hero Native and then against an underground pro known only as Eraserhead."
"Oh, Aizawa is going to hate this attention," Izuku huffed. Aizawa was better than Stain, huh? That wasn't really surprising. Eraserhead was absolutely lethal. He wasn't built to be a frontline hero, but there weren't many frontliners, even in the top twenty, who would stand a chance of beating Izuku's teacher.
Native had an enormous picture in the paper, as did Stain. Aizawa was shown as a silhouetted blur, capture scarf the only distinguishing feature. At least he had held onto some anonymity.
"Native was ambushed and has told police that he "would be dead if not for the timely intervention of another hero and his student who were working the area." He has not sustained any serious injuries." It was odd to realize that Izuku was that student. It was relieving to note that the paper did not seem to have any idea who Native's rescuers were. No one should know except for Stain, Native, the Iidas, Aizawa, Konno and Izuku himself. Well, False Flag would likely put the pieces together. Hopefully none of the others would speak a word of this to the press.
"Stain evaded Native and his allies but, within the hour, faced off against Eraserhead who defeated the Hero Killer. Stain was brought to police officers who were working with Endeavour to subdue and secure opportunistic looters in central Hosu.
"Stain managed to slip his cuffs after the transfer of custody and delivered a truly chilling speech in which he explained the twisted philosophy that led to his vicious attacks on so many beloved heroes. [Click here to view Stain's speech.] The Hero Killer then lost consciousness before he could cause further damage and was secured for transport out of the city."
Izuku watched the video of Stain's speech and shivered as the man yelled "only All Might may kill me! Only All Might is a true hero!" It was frightening to see someone that... fanatically convinced the horrible things he did were completely justified. That devotion... a dark part of Izuku's mind whispered, "it's contagious; we haven't seen the last of Stain or his ideals." Izuku hoped that dark part was wrong, but it probably wasn't given his luck.
Putting the news aside, Izuku turned his attention to his messages. There were plenty from Kacchan.
Yesterday, 3:15 pm: "Glad you're alright but I swear you are magnetically attracted to trouble wherever there is trouble that's where you go oh my god you're going to give me a heart attack!"
"Sorry, Kacchan." He'd been saying that a lot lately.
Yesterday, 6:47 pm: "This restaurant is so fancy I don't know what to do why are there so many utensils and Best Jeanist and Gang Orca have been flirting with each other across the table nonstop all night and pretending that they're not doing that at all and its weird but also like really funny"
Izuku burst into laughter. That was a great image. Yesterday, 7:15 pm: "Still asleep nerd?"
Yesterday, 7:20 pm: "Guess you're asleep and maybe you wouldn't want to text me the story anyway but you owe me a full explanation when we're back at school"
Today, 8:20 am: "Still asleep really were you that tired"
Yes. Yes he was that tired. Izuku replied to his friend, "I'll tell you all about it when we're back in class."
What else did he need to search? Right. He needed to see if he could find any mention of someone (or something) called All For One and he needed to see if Stain was right about what being a Switchblade meant.
Given that he knew the websites and news archives related to the MLA very well by this point, Izuku would probably have better luck with the Switchblade question. He addressed that first.
The greenette found one mention of the term in an archived document that seemed to be a declassified, unofficial mission report from a skirmish in Italy. "The Switchblade was by Destro's side, as always, and we would have shot the bastard if his body guard hadn't been willing to take the bullet for him."
That seemed to support Stain's assertion, but the next reference Izuku found, an excerpt from an official mission report, did not. "As we reached the end of the corridor, Dougal revealed himself to have been a Switchblade all along, stabbed Forks in the back and proceeded to bring the entire MLA force down on us." In this case, "Switchblade" referred to a traitor working for the MLA.
Izuku then found a paragraph in a book called Meta Before Quirks: The Rise and Fall of Destro and the Meta Liberation Army which answered the question once and for all. Izuku had read large sections of this text already. It was a well-known and well-respected source, a definitive guide in some sense, published in America about fifteen years ago. It was many hundreds of pages long, however, so it was no surprise that Izuku hadn't stumbled upon this sentence previously. "It often happened that a critical member of a strike force sent to act against, or even near, the MLA high command would turn out to be a Switchblade, the changeling Switcher in disguise. As Switcher was Destro's most common and most devoted body guard, this term has occasionally been used to refer to any individual guarding the MLA's leader. Typically, the two definitions would be synonymous, but not always."
"So... what does this mean? Did the person possessing me mean Switchblade in the sense of Destro's bodyguard or Switchblade in the sense of Switcher in disguise or were they just confused or... I'm me. I'm Izuku, I am still Izuku but... could Switcher himself have been involved in this? Could Stain have fought Switcher pretending to be me? Why the... that doesn't make any sense. They must have meant the colloquial definition of a bodyguard. Right? I..."
What if Izuku weren't actually Izuku? What if Izuku were dead and "Izuku" was actually Switcher with a bad case of head-trauma induced amnesia or the lingering effect of some memory-shuffling quirk? How would he know? How could he possibly prove or disprove that?
He had to stop thinking about this. It just... he had to stop thinking about this. Down this path lay only madness. "I'm going to put that down," Izuku said, "under the category "so unlikely it's barely worth considering but still possible" and I'll worry about it if more evidence surfaces suggesting that it's the case. And I'm not going to worry about what I'll do if that turns out to be what's happened..." If he were Switcher, would he have an extra toe joint still? Would the changeling's quirk imitate even that feature?
God, what if he had to tell his--Izuku's--mother that he--Izuku--really was dead? What if he had to tell Kacchan that, in fact, he had never made up with him--Izuku--at all? That it had all been too late because Izuku was long gone and the only one left was a crazy changeling wearing Izuku's shape? What if he--Switcher--had killed him--Izuku--personally to take his place? Would Switcher do that? Izuku hadn't seen much of him in Bit Weasel's memories, historical sources were biased and likely out of date... Maybe? Depending on what his motivations were, on how important the mission was, Izuku could see Switcher doing something like that. Killing and impersonating enemy commanders was one of Switcher's most common tactics during the war. No. No. Enough of this. Madness down that path, remember?
All For One. That was the next thing.
Izuku searched until lunch was just around the corner, but he couldn't find any mention of a person or organization called All For One. That in itself was suspicious. It took tenacious searching to find any mention of War Dog online; one had to dive into some very sketchy forums to read her name, but it could be found. The fact that there was an, apparently, immensely powerful villain or villain organization by the name of All For One that no one ever mentioned online... almost suggested a cover up of some kind.