Getting to class early paid off. There was no one present to notice his hair until after Izuku was

unconscious at his desk.

"Nerd," Kacchan's voice filtered through the haze as if spoken by some dream phantom. "Nerd,

what is wrong with your hair?"

Izuku shook himself to consciousness. They were in class... fortunately nothing was actually happening at the moment, just free study time. "It's a genuine fake bad disguise," the (former) greenette explained, still at least fifty-percent asleep.

"That doesn't make any sense," Ojiro pointed out from... somewhere.

"...No, sounds legit," Shouji disagreed.

Izuku put his head down on his desk. The next time he woke, it was to Kirishima poking his curls, a look of mortified sympathy on his face. "Uh... if you want help with hair dye, I know a thing or two about it," the red head offered very quietly, giving his own spiky locks a self-conscious pat.

"Believe it or not," Izuku mumbled, deciding to let the uninvited hair-prodding go without comment, "it's supposed to look this way." In the background, Todoroki squinted at Izuku's hair with a thoughtful expression, a shudder-worthy grin spreading across his face.

Kirishima stared Izuku dead in the eyes. "No. No it is not supposed to look this way. What have you been doing ?" He sounded... genuinely concerned. Izuku was not sure how to handle concern from... mostly anyone. He knew how to handle his mother and Kacchan and Ojiro and Shouji for the most part, and maybe Aizawa sometimes... but he didn't know what to do about Kirishima, especially when he wasn't allowed to give any details.

"I'm doing work-study," he replied eventually, because that much he could say and it should explain everything. Kirishima just raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. Izuku sighed and put

his face back on his desk.

"I'm starting to understand why Kesagiri Man wears a bag over his head," Izuku muttered as he shoveled his lunch into his mouth, eager to get out of the cafeteria without delay.

"It's not like you're the only person at school with bad hair," Shouji pointed out, "fewer people are looking at you than you think."

Ojiro hummed. "Ashido and her friends are definitely looking, though." His eyes narrowed and his tail swished. "And taking pictures." It would make good blackmail material. "That's rather rude."

Izuku shrugged. "I don't think I blame them," he muttered.

"Yeah," Kacchan huffed, "pretty shocking, nerd, I can't help but think what Best Jeanist would say about it..." The blonde winced and stared down at his food, prodding it with a utensil.

"Sorry," Izuku mumbled.

"Genius Office is pretty depressing without him around," Katsuki admitted. "I'm glad I took the offer but... it's not the same without someone trying to convince me to do weird shit with my clothes and hair all the time."

"And succeeding," Shouji pointed out. "How did that happen by the way?"

"Like hell I'd ever tell you that." Katsuki stared into space before continuing in a distant voice, "and, honestly, I don't think I could tell you even if I wanted to... no matter how I look at it, it doesn't make any damn sense."

Rather than taking his free period after lunch as a study hall, Izuku made his way back to the dorms for another much needed nap... and an escape from the judgmental staring.

"Aren't they so cute?" Epona crooned. The war had worn on her, as it had all of the generals, and she had not escaped without permanent injury, although her limp was the only obvious sign. He couldn't help but notice the subtler ones. Her golden-brown curls were streaked with gray, body coated in callouses and scars, eyes dark as an ocean of blood.

"What is this?" Izuku stared at the tiny sapling. It didn't look like any species he had ever seen before.

"They're a giant sequoia," she replied, "or perhaps a new species given the superficial changes, the root networks and the quirk... Black sequoia might fit with the dark color of the bark. Yes. Let's use that. They're a black sequoia."

"I... can see that." Well, Izuku could see that there was a tree.

Epona stroked the bristles as if the conifer were some kind of cat. Was it a conifer? Were sequoias

conifers? Did it matter? "Its ancestors were truly impressive specimens. Nobody saw in them what I saw," she stared into the distance as she was wont to. "I looked on them and I could see what their lineage was destined to be... so I helped it along!" she beamed. Just like that... She treated bring to light whole new species via one-generation accelerated evolution as if it were nothing particularly special. To Izuku it was a borderline miracle. To Epona it was Tuesday.

"What do they do?" Izuku asked as Epona set about the task of planting her new child.

"They enforce a rule," she grinned, "the rule we all wish was enforced everywhere. If you take from others, they will take from you. If you give to others, they will give to you."

"Wait. Your tree... makes karma... a real thing?"

Epona's smile drowned out the sun for a moment as she declared, "yes! We've been having so much trouble," she explained, although it certainly wasn't necessary to explain this to him, "trying to keep order without actually... becoming like them, becoming everything we fought against in the first place. This one island is the only place where we've managed to keep some semblance of... I don't want to call it civilization..." Izuku knew exactly what she meant. "We've been talking about standing armies, secret police, city guards... what if most of that weren't necessary?"

"Did you go out and scour the whole world... just to find ancestors for this tree? Is that what you've been constantly running off to do these last five years?" Izuku couldn't quite process the storm of thoughts and emotions swirling in a hurricane about his head. If this were true, if it were real... it could change everything. But could he even believe in a power like that? Well... he believed in a power like All For One... he believed in a power like his own... maybe?

Epona nodded to herself, patting the dirt firmly in place about her sapling. "Let them think we built a machine to do it," she grinned. She looked... alive in a way she hadn't in years, not since the war, not since they shipped her Influx's body piece by piece. "With Cloud Viper and his mad scientist brother constantly showing off their new inventions, it'll be easy to let them think we've built some massive computer. It's better for us," Epona set her spade aside and got to her feet, "if no one knows they're a tree... or trees. Give that a few years... They'll be our little secret." She raised a finger to her lips. "Don't say a word."

Black cedars were not so large as their giant counterparts but grew much more quickly to make up for their diminished stature. Tenacious little saplings... even the unlucky ones rising with their backs against stones and nowhere to spread roots refused to die-- they were much like the human inhabitants of the island in that way.

Roots linked up in one great web beneath the earth, one massive, woven being manifesting with many heads... like a hydra. And Servii was their name...

Izuku jolted awake. False Flag... had not been messing with him! This was the first vision Izuku had ever had from after the war. Flag mentioned Servii... and his mind filled in the blanks. Oh my god, this was insane and that explained why there were so many weird, quirked plants (and animals perhaps) in the Rebel Isles--Epona spent her entire life after the MLA war searching the planet for promising candidates and using her Future Generations ability to bring the quirks of their distant descendants to light.

Did that mean that all the plants and animals of the world were going to have quirks in the future? Or... information on Epona's quirk was very sketchy and pretty disturbing; it wasn't clear that the developments she caused would ever have occurred naturally. Epona could not manipulate human genetics (thank god--now that would be an ethical nightmare of unimaginable proportion) and it was unclear whether she could use her ability on other animals, either. It was possible that, despite naming herself after a Celtic goddess of horses, Epona had no power to... manipulate the quirks of anything save unborn plants. It wasn't like normal science couldn't do that now with CRISPR, but still... creepy.

Anyway, Epona's terrifying meta ability aside, False Flag was telling the truth about Servii. But... Servii was a secret. Izuku had done plenty of research on the Rebel Isles and Black Forest in particular and never once heard mention of any sort of karma engine (except maybe those two weird blogs that he assumed were written by trolls) certainly no mention of a tree... Epona had specifically said Servii's nature was supposed to be kept quiet, so why did False Flag know about this in the first place? And why, why, would she mention it to Izuku like that? Why would she... unless... unless she thought Izuku already knew everything about Servii... But why would she think that? Did she think the greenette was a former Rebel Isles resident himself? Was she testing him, watching his reaction? That actually made a lot of sense and their last conversation seemed much more intelligible in that context but... why would she think that? And would a normal resident of Black Forest even know about the trees? Was it one of those taboo topics that nobody talked about but everyone understood... or was False Flag specifically testing to see whether Izuku knew what were, essentially, state secrets... why... She couldn't possibly know about Izuku's dreams, could she? If it was a state secret, why would she know that kind of classified information? Who was she? Switcher? Related to him?

Blanks... There were still too many of those. Every time Izuku learned something new it just revealed more questions. He shook his aching head and willed sleep to return to him. He was going to miss math, but he vaguely recalled Aizawa telling him it was alright if he couldn't make it. There was no point in showing up like this. He'd ask Kacchan for the notes later.

Stakeouts on rooftops were more interesting than expected. The greenette could see the entire street and then some, eyes darting across dozens of faces. This part of town was quite crowded despite (or perhaps because of) its well-advertised status as a haven for criminal activity. "I thought we were supposed to hide in a parked car?" Izuku muttered.

"Hiding in a parked car is a spy cliché and an incredibly obvious one at that. Rather than trying to seem inconspicuous, choose a place to hide where you simply aren't seen. Bring a periscope and a maintenance uniform if necessary," False Flag told him from where she crouched in the shadows of an industrial air conditioning unit. She had decided, today, to unnerve him by turning into a copy of Aizawa. It had taken Izuku a while to get over the cognitive dissonance of looking at his teacher but speaking to his work-study mentor. "In fact, pretending to be a water, gas, electric, or internet repair person is often an excellent cover. Pretending to be an exterminator works, too."

The greenette watched a group of truants walk past with ice cream cones. "So, Flag..."

"Fossa."

"Why did you tell me about Servii? That was... a weird thing to bring up."

She shrugged. "You seemed interested in it." Had he? And that was a complete non-answer... not that he'd expected anything else.

"I was mostly asleep," he pointed out, "I'm not sure how interested I was in anything."

"Car rides are boring without bizarre conversation," False Flag shrugged again, catching him with a calculating stare. Oh, she definitely knew something. And... she thought he knew what she knew? But he didn't know what she knew. He only knew she knew something that she thought he knew... His brain was tying itself in knots. This wasn't working. He wasn't going to get any information out of her unless he asked directly and he didn't even know how to ask directly.

"Do you see that?" Izuku asked. "What?"

"There's someone walking between the warehouses wearing a plague doctor's mask." The man moved swiftly and would only be visible for five seconds or so as he darted between doors.

"Shie Hassaikai yakuza," False Flag recited, eyes zeroing in on the suspicious individual, beginning to snap pictures. "This is good."

"It is?" Izuku wondered.

She nodded, putting her camera down as the bird-masked man vanished into a side door. "We've been trying to get solid evidence that they're involved in Trigger distribution for a long time. This is the first occasion anyone's spotted an actual yakuza member in recognizable uniform at a place known to be part of the distribution network." She scrutinized her pictures, having made use of the zoom function when they were taken. "Yeah. I know this guy, mask or not. He's a big shot. This is quite possibly enough evidence to get a raid warrant on the yakuza compound, or at the very least get me permission to impersonate someone low on their ranks and sneak in." She smirked, "and if I hadn't had an intern I needed to show the ropes of a stakeout, I wouldn't have been here today. Good show, Fossa." Izuku couldn't help but blush a bit at the... sort of compliment, their bizarre conversational dance forgotten for the moment.

The stakeout lasted another two hours, but neither of them witnessed anything else of note. The two made their way down a service ladder and back to False Flag's (current) home base.

Izuku hadn't been paying close attention the first time he had been here, embarrassed to scrutinize the house too closely on account of the mess. False Flag did not seem to be embarrassed by the chaos in the slightest, however. "I move every couple months," she explained as they weaved through the boxes stacked in her entryway, "and I rarely end up staying and working in a place suitable for sparring." Why were they suddenly talking about sparring? Izuku sensed impending doom. "But then again, most places and situations in which our sort fight--" she whirled towards him and swept his legs so that Izuku tumbled to the ground. Reflexes kicked in and the greenette was back up a moment later. "Are far from ideal."

Flag moved like a viper, every angle measured, and shifted between forms of men, women, and children with terrible grace, mutant quirks thrown in like sprinkles on a cupcake. It was all Izuku could do to avoid having his teeth knocked out and he was going to have a black eye the next day. "What are you doing, Fossa?" she taunted. "What is that? Where are your weapons?"

"I'm not carrying any right now," Izuku panted, ducking to avoid being thrown down the basement stairs. Indeed, she had specifically told him to disarm as they returned to her base.

"That's no excuse! Find some."

Oh. Was that the point of this exercise? "But I can't break your stuff!"

"My stuff was bought to be broken," his assailant replied. "Anything that isn't carefully concealed in locked rooms is disposable."

Alright then. Izuku picked up a cheap side table and swung it like a pendulum. "That's more like it!" Flag crowed, shifting into Endeavour of all people. She didn't have the flaming beard... although whether that was because she couldn't have the flaming beard or didn't think it practical in this situation Izuku didn't know. She could definitely copy mutation quirks, at least to some extent, when shapeshifting. Non-mutations? Izuku had no idea, nor did he understand how she acquired an individual's form to copy in the first place. He suspected that she needed to touch the person but he couldn't be certain.

False Flag bull rushed him and Izuku found himself relieved of his table and pinned against the wall, the only thing in easy reach being a hanging picture. Izuku pulled the frame from the wall and smashed it over the changeling's head. She snarled and gave Izuku enough leeway to slip from her grasp.

Flag watched him intently as they fought with improvised weapons. Izuku soon learned what it was like to have someone throw a chair at him--although the chair in question was a second hand piece of plastic garbage that couldn't do much harm. The subpar construction of the décor in general suggested that Flase Flag had planned this entire exercise long in advance, arranging it so that they wouldn't accidentally kill each other.

Several hectic minutes later, when Izuku was beginning to tire, the undercover pro refrained from slamming the greenette's head in the western style bathroom door, pulling the blow at the last minute but teaching the student an excellent lesson about situational awareness none the less. She gave him a challenging smirk as if saying "are you really going to take that from me?" It was without a doubt the most condescending expression Izuku had ever seen on his own face. The greenette pushed his fatigue aside and fought on.

Then False Flag turned into War Dog. Izuku froze solid, mind overwhelmed with static--he was on the ground before he knew it, claws biting into skin but not yet ripping through it, razor fangs inches from his face--then he'd thrown her off--what had he even done? From time to time he still found his body moving through obscure martial arts routines that he had no names for--and scrambled away--the kitchen. He was in the kitchen at False Flag's house, not running from a werewolf across a deserted bridge while a bloody moon glittered off the water below.

Kitchens... kitchens had knives. Izuku whirled and pulled a cleaver from the knife block, freezing with the blade at the ready. False Flag stared at him, still in War Dog's guise--without a glaze of panic she actually looked pretty silly as tails were not meant to be worn with unmodified pants. The undercover hero's eyes blazed with triumph. She waited, growling low in her throat, tail swishing. Izuku waited, panting heavily, knife held in front of him. He wouldn't use it of course, same as Flag had pulled the blow rather than smash his head in the door.

"What are you playing at?" the changeling asked him. "Uhh... I found a knife? Does that mean I won?"

"In a real fight, if I were unarmed and you had a knife, I might choose to run. I don't think I would be able to disarm you, but that wasn't the question. What do you want from me, Fossa?"

"To... learn how to be an undercover hero successfully? Uh..." that was clearly wrong given her unimpressed expression. War Dog's countenance was surprisingly easy to read. "Uh, a ride back to UA would be nice? In the immediate future? Uh..." still wrong. "A letter of recommendation?" The wolf's pricked ears slowly drooped like a wax statue melting in the sun and the stern expression turned to slack jawed confusion.

"I don't get you," she said.

"W-what's not to get?" Izuku asked. False Flag shifted back to her most common form--the woman with the braid and the scars--and the greenette put his knife back in the block on the counter from whence it came. Huh. These were real granite counters. Nice. Why was his brain thinking about that at a time like this?

"Strange things are happening here," Flag told him, arms crossed, "and I think you must know that, and you must know that I know that. Honestly, what game are you playing, Switchblade?"

Ice colder than Todoroki's glaciers flooded through Izuku's veins and he felt his face turn into a pale, stony mask. "I don't know what you're talking about," he replied automatically.

"Oh, you absolutely do, Fossa, don't be an idiot."

"Fine. I know what the word means, but I am not a sympathizer of the MLA, modern or original."

Well, mostly anyway.

"Wha... wait. Are you kidding me? That's what you're worried about?"

What should he be worried about? "I'm not doing anything wrong," Izuku said because it seemed like a reasonable thing to say.

"But what are you doing? It doesn't make any sense!"

"I'm attending UA like I wanted to all my life. What do you think--why else would I--what else should I be doing?" Izuku replied hysterically. He wasn't sure what he was being accused of, but it was... it was a waking nightmare. What did she suspect? Who would she tell? Was he finally going to lose his place at UA after all? Would the lie detecting detective be knocking on his dorm door any day, ready to reel the whole truth (whatever that was) out of him?

Flag snorted, then stared at his face very, very carefully, scrutinizing as if she could gaze straight into his soul. "No... you... do you really not know what...? Okay, you've got me Fossa. I have no idea what's going on here."

"That makes two of us," Izuku whispered shakily.

False Flag sighed deeply, ran fingers through her hair, and shooed him towards her car. "You might as well get some decent sleep tonight at least. We're going to meet at another hero's agency in a few days. I'll send you the information."

"So... I'm still your student?"

"As much as you are anyone's student I suppose."

What the hell? He tried to work up the courage to demand an explanation during the ride back to

UA, but the most he managed to do was quietly ask her, "I don't know what you think you know but please don't tell anyone," because he'd managed to work through enough threads in these recent disaster conversation-confrontation hybrids to conclude that whatever False Flag thought was going on here, she was probably wrong. Otherwise Izuku would be able to at least follow the thread of her questions.

"I have no intention of telling anyone anything," Flag told him, in reply, not volunteering any further details.

Izuku did not get decent sleep that night, tossing and turning, rethinking everything he could remember of the conversation from that night and the conversation from the car ride, occasionally flicking on the light to stare at the transcription jotted down in his coded notebook, trying to understand what the changeling could possibly have been talking about. The only thing that made any sense at all... was that False Flag thought Izuku was not Izuku, was someone else entirely. She called him a Switchblade, she acted like she expected him to know what Servii was, so she thought he was some big shot villain shapeshifter from the Rebel Isles? Was he some kind of big shot villain shapeshifter from the Rebel Isles? Did she think... she said she had a brother, did False Flag think Izuku was her sibling? Could he be her sibling? Had he shown some familiar tell during their spar, something that revealed his true nature? Or was Flag just. Plain. Wrong? If Izuku were a shapeshifter with severe memory damage... wouldn't he have discovered the quirk by now? He'd read plenty of forums about this on account of Switcher and Flag herself--changeling and total body transformation quirks were typically very easy to activate to the point that shifting often happened by accident when one's mind wandered and emotions ran hot. That didn't guarantee anything about the nature of not-Izuku's hypothetical shapeshifting ability... But he really wanted to talk himself out of this pit. Here he was again, dreading the possibility that he might not be himself, too afraid to come right out and demand False Flag explain herself. And she probably wouldn't explain herself if he asked her flat out, or maybe she just didn't know anything helpful at all. "I have no idea what's going on here," seemed to suggest that she might not have any useful information after all. Had Izuku disproved whatever hypothesis she'd come up with? She'd called him Switchblade and that was... well, she could have just overheard Stain calling him that the night they met in Hosu and used it to try to surprise and unnerve him as she often did with her chosen bodies. It could mean nothing, but it would be nice to know whether False Flag was aware of Izuku's missing week. That, at least, would help give some context.

The student slept through homeroom again but managed to make it to his other classes. Unfortunately, the novelty of quietly whispering about Izuku's hair had not yet worn thin. Kesagiri Man's head bag was sounding more and more appealing.