Aizawa called for him and Izuku stayed behind as the rest of the class went to lunch. "Midoriya,
there are number of people who want to talk to you."
"About what?" Izuku asked, putting a firm lid on his panic; it felt like sitting on top of a garbage bin containing an anaconda, hoping his weight would be enough to keep the constrictor from bursting out. They, whoever they were, might want to talk about practically anything. There was no reason to be frantic.
"Detective Tsukauchi, Principal Nedzu, and All Might."
Izuku blinked. Why in the world? " All Might wants to talk to... me? Why?"
"Apparently All For One is a name well known to him," Aizawa replied. "I will be present for the conversation as well."
Alright. This was fine... probably, and it was a new lead at least. "When are we going to meet?" "Wednesday," Aizawa replied, "after school. I'll take you to see them."
"Thank you. I suppose I need to talk to Nedzu at some point anyway..."
"About?" the underground hero raised an eyebrow.
"Faking disciplinary or expulsion records."
The teacher nodded. "So you're seriously considering the hardcore undercover career. We have one or two every other year. You won't participate in the Sports Festivals in your second or third year and, although you will take the preliminary licensing exam with the rest of your peers, the pro licensing exam will be very different for you." There were several different pro licensing exams depending on what specialty the hero in question pursued. The undercover exam was, in Konno's
words, a "royal horror show." Izuku wasn't entirely sure what to make of that. Undercover heroes were issued licenses but they never, ever carried them on the job. Frontliners, undergrounders, and undercoverers (that wasn't a word was it) were registered in different databases with very different security protocols. Everyone had access to the database consisting of basic information about frontliners; it was public information for accountability--and marketing--reasons. Only other heroes and police officers had access to information about underground heroes. The database pertaining to the registration of undercover heroes was highly classified. Proving that one was an undercover hero (without registration numbers or the affirmation of one's handler) was intentionally quite difficult. Individuals who were underground or even frontline might occasionally work undercover, but those who planned to do such jobs repeatedly needed to pass the exam and become official undercover heroes to acquire identity protection resources, a permanent handler, and means of compensation for their silent work. In other words, one needed to be registered to have any hope of long term success.
"Depending on how things go, most of the class may be led to believe that you did not pass the pro exam or did not graduate at all."
Izuku nodded. He had the basic idea of how all of this went. You had to just... not care that most of your classmates would be led to believe you weren't on their side. Izuku wasn't so close to most of the class that he expected this to be particularly painful. Ojiro, Shouji, and Kacchan would know the truth, of course. It would be impossible to hide from them nor would he wish to. They all understood that Izuku planned to work underground or undercover and could be counted on to hold their tongues.
The greenette trotted down the hallway to lunch, hoping an unusual gait (skipping) could help him break the cycle of his spiraling thoughts which had taken a somewhat dramatic turn into a forbidden zone. "What if I am Switcher?" he wondered. "What would I do then? Would I want to hide my history, take Izuku's name as my own and become a hero? It was what he wanted, right? It would be only fair to him. But would it be what I want? Given what I know about myself? I was a rebel, I hated hero society as it exists now, and who's running Black Forest if I'm not there? The regime change would be obvious . I can't imagine it could be hidden, and since I haven't heard anything about a power shift like that in Black Forest I just can't be Switcher... but could I be someone else ? Under the influence of a transformation quirk or something that changes appearance? But that still doesn't make any sense. Why would someone want to pretend to be Midoriya Izuku? Using a quirkless kid, sure, but why would you want to be one?"
Kacchan appeared as if by magic, arms crossed and scowling. "Now what's this about you getting in a knife fight with Stain?" he demanded, pulling Izuku down to eat beside Ojiro and Shouji.
"You did what?" Ojiro asked.
"He had about the same reaction to seeing me the first time as you did when we met, Ojiro," Izuku sighed, poking his lunch. He really wasn't hungry.
"Wait, he recognized you? From when you were missing?" Katsuki demanded.
"Mhm. Apparently we fought to a stand still and whoever was possessing me insulted him a lot," Izuku explained. "Kesagiri Man and I were probably going to draw against the Hero Killer, but an undercover hero showed up out of nowhere and chased Stain away."
"Wow," Shouji sighed. "You are a trouble magnet, aren't you, Midoriya?"
"It's not my fault," Izuku almost whimpered. "All these things keep happening and I didn't ask for any of it. Why can't my life be normal for like ten minutes?" He could really use ten minutes of
normal right now. He would spend them on a nap, probably.
"Well, at least there's nobody scarier who's going to recognize you now," the Explosion wielder pointed out, gesturing vaguely with his utensils. "Stain's about as creepy as it can get."
"No," Izuku shook his head. War Dog. All For One. Who knew how many others... "No, he isn't. There are wolves out there and Stain is an Australian shepherd in comparison."
"Like who, nerd?" Kacchan snorted.
The details of who was involved in the Hosu mess shouldn't be shared, not even with friends as close as these, but this much Izuku could tell. "I scared Stain away from two would be victims by pretending a triple-S vigilante was chasing me. Stain ran as if his life depended on it. The fact that we have double and triple-S villain ranks is all you really need to know to say that Stain isn't the scariest person who might recognize me."
"I'm suddenly a lot less hungry," Ojiro grimaced.
"Sorry." Izuku's lack of appetite was contagious.
"Never apologize for telling the truth," Shouji admonished gently. "Frightening it may be, but withholding information never helps anyone." Wow. That hit a bit closer to home than Shouji likely intended it to. Izuku set to nibbling on his neglected lunch just for the sake of a distraction.
"So, you told me not to ask," Izuku decided to change the subject by dragging Katsuki's secrets to the light for a change, "but why did you text me saying you were on fire?"
"He did what?" Ojiro gave them all an exasperated glare.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kacchan said stonily.
"I have the messages on my phone," Izuku pointed out.
"No idea," Kacchan repeated, "what you're talking about."
"Sounds like your internship was pretty eventful, too, Bakugou," Shouji commented and you didn't need to see his face because you could hear the grin.
"Did Best Jeanist really tie you to a chair and do your hair for a full hour every day?" Izuku piled on.
"I wasn't tied to the chair and it was only like twenty or thirty minutes. I just read a book and he would occasionally read over my shoulder and comment about something being totally wrong."
This was a hilarious image. "What book were you reading?" Ojiro asked.
"Rise and Fall of Destro and the MLA," Katsuki shrugged, giving Izuku a meaningful look. He was reading that purely for Izuku's benefit, so that he could understand some of what was going on in the greenette's head. Wow. That was so sweet Izuku didn't know how to react. He blinked back the budding tears because they would be hard to explain in this context.
"Huh. Really? Is it interesting?" Shouji asked.
"Really interesting, yeah. It's an American book and they... lots of Americans actually supported the MLA, though they didn't like, say it aloud, and quirks aren't regulated there like they are here so it's... more objective than any Japanese source you'll find."
"It's something of a definitive guide," Izuku nodded. "I've read parts of it, too."
"Really?" Ojiro raised an eyebrow. Why? Was that weird?
"I'm interested in that time period," was all the explanation Izuku could give. "I know there are parts of that book that don't agree with primary sources that I've found." And technically Izuku probably counted as a primary source himself at this point. "The description of General Bit Weasel's quirk, for one, is definitely wrong. But I'm surprised that Best Jeanist knew... maybe I shouldn't be surprised? What was he actually critiquing?"
"He said that a bunch of the quirk descriptions were wrong for one," Katsuki answered. "Apparently some of them are really wrong, Bit Weasel's like you said and Fractal's and like three of the other guys."
Izuku nodded. "No one knows what Fractal's quirk was. Same with a few of the others. Rise and Fall admits that it's guessing when it states that Xavier Verwey had that camouflaging ability, although they do cite some meaningful evidence..."
"He was quirkless," Katsuki replied. "What?" Shouji coughed.
"That's what Best Jeanist said, anyway, and he seemed, like, really sure of it. When I asked him how he knew he just acted like it was obvious and something everybody should know." Interesting. Was that really true? Again, how would Best Jeanist know that?
"A quirkless... general in the MLA?" Ojiro scoffed in disbelief. "Yeah, no. Top ten pro or not, that can't possibly be right. They would have skinned a quirkless man alive before letting him take a leadership role."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Izuku shook his head, considering the evidence. "C-Destro had plenty of friends who he met when all of them were pretending not to be meta--pretending to be quirkless, and that didn't seem to bother him at all. Plenty of pro meta human rights activists didn't have meta abilities themselves. Further, the original MLA was not... not nearly as radical as people in Japan tend to believe. They weren't, or most of the leadership wasn't at least, meta human supremacists. They were... demanding freedom and equality for the most part... the philosophy strayed to anarchism at times, though, and they were much nastier in countries that were nastier to meta humans, Russia for one.
"There were nominal MLA cells which operated semi autonomously, of course, and the leadership of any given cell could be quite radical, but C-Destro," he needed to stop slipping like that, he couldn't afford to slip like that, "and the centralized MLA leadership would and did publicly disavow and cut ties with splinter groups that did particularly... unacceptable things, and in several cases the centralized MLA destroyed splinter cells or nominal MLA groups for crossing lines.
"The Valentine's Weekend Stadium Attack in Japan," the name of the incident had been assigned by the BBC for some reason rather than any Japanese news outlet, "which you've probably heard of as an example of just how bad the MLA was during the war in our country, was actually carried out by a cell that called themselves the MLA but, in fact, weren't in any way associated with Destro or any of his generals. They answered to a man who called himself Scourge and his younger sister who called herself Havoc. Tripswitch and Bit Weasel, the two real MLA generals who were in command of operations in Japan at the time this happened, immediately disavowed all involvement in the attack and, when the military was unable to apprehend Scourge, Havoc and their fifty or so followers within the week, Bit Weasel and Fractal took a squad of twenty of their
elite fighters and wiped the Valentine's Stadium Attackers off the map. Bit Weasel apparently killed Scourge in single combat. Havoc threw herself off a building rather than be captured alive."
Shouji and Ojiro stared at him. He had been rambling, hadn't he? A number of other people from neighboring tables were staring , too, like Todoroki and Shinsou... someone was standing behind him. "Oh, h-hello Midnight..." Izuku blushed and ducked his head.
"Would you like to teach the MLA unit when we cover it next semester?" she asked. "Sounds like you know at least as much about it as I do."
"No, really, I don't. Sorry!" Izuku squeaked. How suspicious was it that he knew all of that stuff?
"Don't apologize for being knowledgeable," Midnight shook her head. "You're completely correct, of course, about the Valentine's Stadium Attack. I have to admit some grudging respect for Bit Weasel and Tripswitch, although they didn't have much choice. They couldn't allow another group to use the MLA name like that in the same way that a big corporation can't allow a startup to steal its logo." Izuku nodded. How long until the bell--there it was! Thank goodness. The greenette bid farewell to his history teacher and ran back to class.
"Hey Iida," Izuku said, approaching the other student as they walked towards UA's gates. "How was hanging from the chandelier?"
"Not too bad," Iida sighed. "Thank you, Midoriya, for everything." "Of course," Izuku replied. "I'm really glad you're alright."
The class president nodded. "I learned an important lesson at least, one I think everyone has to learn eventually."
"Probably."
"I wanted to ask you... why did Stain call you a Switchblade?"
Crap. Izuku had really hoped Iida hadn't heard that. "It's a really long story."
Iida gave the greenette a long, calculating look. "I am perfectly aware of what that term typically means."
Play it cool. "I m-mean, typically it means a bladed weapon that folds in a certain way..."
"That is not what it means when one calls oneself a Switchblade. It was a term used in the Meta Liberation Army to refer to a bodyguard of Destro, and my brother said that modern MLA revivalist groups have used it frequently to refer to leaders or their body guards." Really? Izuku hadn't seen evidence of that; he must have been looking in the wrong places. He'd just tried to see what it meant in the context of the original MLA. He hadn't tried to find out how the term was currently being used. Maybe he had been worrying himself for nothing; maybe whoever possessed
Izuku was just using the title for pomp without caring what it had meant long ago--but the fact that Izuku had memories from the original MLA made that seem rather unlikely.
This was getting really complicated really fast and Iida was glaring at him with stern suspicion that he had no choice but to address with the truth. "I have never called myself a Switchblade, but apparently the body snatcher who possessed me for a week last year called themselves that when they met Stain." Iida's mouth fell open. "You can ask Aizawa to confirm this. He's on my case. I still don't know who kidnapped me or why, just that they got into a lot of fights with powerful villains and eventually gave me back with no memory of any of it. I'm no MLA sympathizer," well, he wasn't sympathetic to any of the modern groups that used the MLA's name. Was it really problematic to be sympathetic towards a rebel cause (or at least its leaders) that was thoroughly defeated so many decades ago? It wasn't as if there could be a conflict of interest or authority; the real MLA was gone. Except Switcher... If Switcher called him on the phone someday and asked him for a harmless favor, or a favor that seemed harmless, would Izuku drop what he was doing and comply? Well, of course not, but if it were really a harmless favor and he didn't have anything else to do... Irrelevant. Switcher was not going to call him on the phone someday. Switcher had no idea who Izuku was and would never have any idea who Izuku was and was presumably very busy being the tyrant of Black Forest... unless he was busy being Izuku but really, he'd been to the end of the line on this train of thought before and he just couldn't be Switcher. He hadn't convinced himself that he was as much Izuku as he appeared to be, but he was pretty sure--no, convinced--that he couldn't be Switcher.
"I had no idea... this..." Iida stumbled over his words and eventually snapped his jaw closed. "I would appreciate it," Izuku said softly, "if you kept this to yourself."
"Who else knows?" Iida asked carefully, "in case I am ever involved in a conversation with your friends where it arises."
That seemed harmless enough. "Katsuki, Ojiro, Shouji, Aizawa... I think probably all the teachers are aware of what happened to me. I keep... admittedly a lot of secrets."
Iida considered this then visibly realized something. "It never occurred to me, but I have no idea what your quirk is."
A smile ghosted over Izuku's face. "That's intentional. It serves underground heroes well to keep their quirk," or lack there of, "quiet." Also, Izuku really enjoyed not being known as "the quirkless kid in the hero course." People would treat him differently if they knew. They might not realize they were treating him differently, they might think they were being nice or helpful but he didn't want any kind of special treatment or special consideration. He wasn't handicapped. He was far from helpless. There wasn't a single person in the hero course he couldn't take down or at least show a good fight given a solid thirty minutes to plan and the right support equipment, but if he became "that quirkless kid in the hero course" his skill and intelligence would become a secondary consideration. People would say, rather than "there's a green haired kid in the hero course who is smart and skilled," "there's this quirkless kid in the hero course but he's smart and skilled," that was if they said anything positive about him at all. He was smart, though, and skilled. He had to be, right? You didn't make it into UA without a quirk unless you were both of those things, right?
"You are..." Iida considered his next words carefully, "remarkably well adjusted." "I'm... what?"
"You saw how I reacted when a family member was attacked by a villain, and he wasn't even critically injured nor were his whereabouts unknown for more than five minutes. After what
happened to me when I went chasing after Stain... I can't imagine having the mental fortitude to just shake off something that utterly horrific."
Shake if off? Hardly. "I've had a year to get over it," Izuku replied, "but I haven't, not really, partially because it keeps popping up everywhere I look..."
"What do you mean?"
"People keep recognizing me, not just Stain," Izuku replied. "That was the original reason why I tried so hard to obscure my identity at the Sports Festival, because I'm afraid of who else might know who I am, who else might want revenge for something I didn't do and don't remember." This was just scraping the very surface of all the concerns currently straining Izuku's sanity. He felt like a rubber band sometimes, stretched to the point where he might snap any day. And he couldn't tell... he couldn't tell anyone, except maybe Kacchan.
"That sounds," Iida swallowed and considered, "mortally terrifying." "Yeah, pretty much," Izuku replied.
"You seem to have a better support system in place than me," Iida sighed, "but if you ever need someone to talk to, I am capable of keeping a secret. If you ever need someone to help you, everyone in my family, retired or not, can fight and we have some excellent lawyers on our payroll for problems of a less physical nature."
The genuine kindness of the offer brought tears to the eyes. "Thank you. I'll keep that in mind."