Kuma stood before him, eyes downcast. "Is it really such an ugly power?" she asked. "My mother was horrified by it... I never really understood why. It's not like it hurts people on its own... you have to really want to make someone miserable with it."

She reached out to him, a pile of glass shards in her hand, the shadowy image of Mamba, the poor dying viper gecko, in her other hand. She poured the glass into one of Izuku's outstretched palms, set the lizard on the other, and pushed his hands together so that the glass caught the light of the setting sun. Like a sudden flame the glow ignited--

He threw Hirano on the concrete floor before him. The man muffled a groan. "Here he is, all tied up with a bow... just like we agreed."

The Soulstealer cocked his head. "Are you really so foolish?" "Oh?"

"Any smart person would have kidnapped or killed this man and then fled the country to escape my grasp." Well, that had been the original plan, that and a condescending phone call warning All For One to stay away from Izuku. "Well, no matter. Who am I to complain when my adversary walks so cheerfully to my grasp? Thank you for bringing this liability to me. You both will make fine nomu."

Izuku threw back his head and laughed. "Foolish? Oh my. You think me foolish? You really don't know who you're dealing with? I thought I would have to bargain with you to get out of here the first time... but you just let me go so I assumed you must have some idea of who I was, must have decided you didn't want to deal with me."

The Soulstealer narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"

He sighed, waking from yet another midnight dream, scribbling down the details before they could fade from his mind. "The Soulstealer knew who I was, or should have known... What happened after that, though, with me and All For One and Hirano? Who was I? In the memory where I thought I killed Hirano, there was something about making the Soulstealer pay. I thought something like that, didn't I? That I would make him pay? What was I planning to do? Was bringing Hirano back to the Soulstealer part of that vengeance plan then, because kidnapping or killing Hirano and disappearing had been the original plan? What happened after this, after I brought Hirano back rather than disappearing, after the Soulstealer said he'd kill us both?" The greenette sighed and closed his journal, turning off the light and laying back to stare at the dark ceiling.

So. He was Izuku, in the sense that he was the sentient entity in possession of the body and memories that had belonged to the sapient entity called Izuku since birth. But he had... relatively little overlap in terms of personality, skill, and behavior with the version of himself who had owned this body before his kidnapping.

Never-been-kidnapped-Izuku (NBKI for short) got stars in his eyes staring at frontline heroes. NBKI was sure he was going to be one of them somehow, devoted utterly to becoming one of them, would have sold his soul for a quirk fit for frontline duty, for a quirk that could give him a smile like All Might and the strength to back it up . NBKI was an idealist with tunnel vision; he knew of the underground world and occasionally gushed over fascinating quirks like Erasure but he kept his focus firmly in the light, often ignoring or rationalizing away the less appealing sides of heroics (the ones he even knew about) . Moreover, NBKI had tunnel vision about society in general, too, somehow glossing over the horrific prejudices others showed towards him and making light of similar injustices faced by other groups because if NBKI could handle being treated like a second class citizen then they should be able to handle it too... NBKI was brave, clever, devoted, noble and ferocious but he was also reckless, self-sacrificing to a fault and willfully oblivious, his perspective twisted by internalized bigotry and hopelessness.

NBKI would have gone to Shinsou and asked to be brainwashed again in the hopes of getting to the bottom of his disappearance promptly, consequences to Izuku and the others involved be damned. NBKI would have considered any sympathizer of Destro to be a traitor who ought to be ostracized or arrested immediately. NBKI would have trusted the HPSC to do the right thing, might have assumed the ongoing scandal was a frame-up... would never have considered keeping a quirk a secret, or hiding any information from investigators for that matter. NBKI would not have been able to handle undercover work would he? No. All of False Flag's lessons would have fallen flat on those ears, their owner so convinced that everyone could be saved, eyes only seeing black and white... It would be nice if the world worked like that, but the same was true of most fantasies.

Post-kidnapping-Izuku (PKI for short) still had some in common with NBKI, didn't he? Their love for analysis was shared. Their burning drive to improve the lots of people around them remained. But what was Izuku really like now? What had he become? PKI certainly had more trouble spotting his own strengths and faults than spotting those of NBKI. It was easier to judge with a bit of time as a buffer. Easier to judge harshly... perhaps he wasn't giving NBKI enough slack. Perhaps he was giving PKI too much.

Regardless, PKI was not self-sacrificing to a fault, not an open book volunteering secrets, not a

shallow admirer with tunnel vision. No, PKI was properly calculating, properly wary, properly open minded, properly adaptable, PKI was... worldly. PKI was, as War Dog had said, a snake eater; he understood that frontline heroics was never an option for him and understood that it didn't matter because frontline heroics was not where he needed to be. He needed to be in the viper's nests. It was where he could do the most good, where he could find and rescue other kidnapped people like him... or... like he thought he had been. He hadn't really been a victim at all, had he, during that missing week? He had been a snake eater, even then, or a snake eater's willing weapon. "Heh. A snake eater's Switchblade," he said aloud, "I suppose that title fit my role."

He was not NBKI anymore. He was PKI. He was Fossa, and was that such a bad thing? He'd fretted, agonized over his identity, over the meaning of "Midoriya Izuku," worrying that he had changed, lost himself, as a result of what had happened to him. He had changed. He had lost himself, his identity, but he'd found a new one and there was nothing wrong with that. He was growing up, as everyone does, becoming an adult hero rather than a star-eyed adolescent with fanciful dreams. Everyone was always changing. His identity shift might have been fast and drastic but that didn't mean it was a bad thing. In fact, it was a good thing.

Why feel guilty about leaving his old self behind? No person is static. Why feel guilty for being the tool by which Hirano was laid low and some kind of blow struck against All For One? It wasn't wrong; it was dirty and sad but it wasn't wrong and someone needed to play that role because Hirano had to be stopped. Why feel guilty about keeping secrets about his dreams, his quirk, or otherwise? He needed to keep secrets. Secrets would keep him alive, allow him to slip into the snake pits and stalk monsters, a predator preying on predators. Why should he feel guilty for having Tripswitch's quirk? He hadn't asked for it and even if he had it was a lovely quirk--no matter what Kuma's mother said--capable of doing beautiful things and Fossa would honor its original holder's memory by using it with extreme care. Why feel guilty for admiring Destro on the occasions when Destro did something worthy of admiration? History, and people, were not black and white. If All Might took down a villain like All For One he deserved a round of thunderous applause; if Destro saved millions of people from a rampaging meta human he deserved an identical round of applause; and if Gentle Criminal trolled corrupt pharmaceutical executives and was a model visitor to the UA Cultural Festival, he deserved a like on social media.

He was PKI. He was Midoriya Izuku. He was Fossa. And it was high time he stopped worrying about who he was and allowed himself to just be.

So... Izuku finally had his quirk. It might not have been his meta ability originally but it was his now. He could finally fill in a section of his analysis journals on himself. He'd waited more than a decade to do that.

Izuku slunk into Training Ground Kappa, one of the secure, quiet wings of UA that most students never visited.

Monoma, slouching against the white cinder block wall, waved. The blonde's expression was much closer to his norm--a hint of condescension and haughtiness. "Finally coming to get the help you need 1-A?" he asked, but there was no derision in the tone. It was spoken out of habit and his

heart wasn't in it.

"Yeah," Izuku replied.

Monoma nodded, approaching. "May I?"

"Of course." The blonde took Izuku's hand quickly and then stepped away.

"So," Monoma began, "you were born quirkless."

"Yes."

"It shouldn't be too hard," the blonde mused to himself. "Mostly everyone learns a quirk for the first time once..."

"What do you...?"

"Lots of quirks have, well--I mean there are families of them. There are passive quirks and there are those you have to activate. There are quirks that are activated like extra muscles. There are quirks that are activated like extra senses. There are quirks that are activated by emotion, by intention, or visualization, or thoughts, or even key phrases spoken aloud... Some are combinations of the above." Monoma was starting to remind Izuku of Izuku. "I tend to be able to figure the trigger out, and often something about the quirk's function, instinctively when I copy one--mine is like an extra muscle, by the way, I physically feel like I'm grabbing something." Huh. Interesting... Izuku pulled his notebook out of his jacket pocket. "Your new quirk is activated by emotion, specifically possessiveness."

"Possessiveness?"

"Mhm, or... maybe that's not quite the right word," Monoma groused, perhaps disappointed with himself for being inarticulate. "You have to really want someone, or something, to be trapped in glass. You have to... it's not desperate it's too confident for that. The best thing I can think of is possessiveness, saying 'mine' and grabbing someone, that kind of feeling."

Just like in his dream with Kuma... "I brought along some pebbles," Izuku took them out of his bag, "and a few small plants."

"Good. Pebbles are better than broken pieces of glass. We won't cut ourselves. I don't think there's really any point in me demonstrating for you again. Just... give it a try."

Izuku collected a pile of glass and a small cactus. What was it Kuma said? What was it Monoma said? Letting the target live in your mind, whatever that meant. Possessiveness. So was this emotion based in selfishness? Protectiveness? Love? Emotions were hard to name sometimes, especially the complicated ones that one felt in the chest and stomach as well as the head. "You have to really want it now. Reach out... take it!"

"I was not expecting that. Do you even need me, 1-A?" Monoma asked as Izuku shook his head back and forth in an attempt to rid himself of the electric adrenaline high. It was exactly like his dream with Kuma. Somehow... somewhere under the skin his body already knew how this worked, how using his power was supposed to feel, and told him in a dream.

"I wasn't expecting it either," Izuku turned the snowglobe round and round in his palm, staring at the tiny cactus within. It had been Kuma's meta ability, All For One's prize, and Hirano's weapon. Now it was none of those things. Now it was Izuku's quirk. "I dreamed about it, though..." Izuku admitted.

"Really? Wait, do you mean dreamed about using a quirk you didn't know you had?" Izuku nodded. "Huh. That's interesting..."

The greenette turned his attention to a second plant, this one a fern requiring a pot the size of his head. He had borrowed it from a windowsill in one of the men's restrooms. He had to dredge up a stronger feeling to compress it into a globe, invest more energy, hold more glass in his hands, but he could do it.

"Hmph. Definitely impressive, 1-A," the blonde grudgingly admitted. "Do you want to try me?" "W-what?" Izuku squeaked.

"Do you want to try it on me?" Monoma repeated, as if he were saying something completely sane and safe.

"Are you serious?" Izuku almost shrieked.

Monoma blinked at him. "Yeah. I'm curious. Don't you want to know what it's like?"

"W-what if I don't know what I'm doing and it kills you?" the greenette demanded.

"I am upwards of ninety-nine percent sure this quirk can't kill, not on its own anyway," Monoma answered.

"One percent dead is still dead!"

"Okay, okay," Monoma shrugged. "Some other time, then. You've got to learn to use it on humans, though; you're not an idiot like some of your classmates." Hey. That wasn't very nice but, well... a few of them were kind of oblivious sometimes. "You know that this quirk's big advantage is pocketing people to get them out of a combat zone."

"True." Nonetheless, Izuku was not going to experiment with live animals that evening, not under any circumstances. It would be some time before he could find out whether this was a power one could use on oneself, unless Monoma already knew. Perhaps the quirk's instincts had told him? "Do you know if this quirk can be used on its own holder?" Izuku asked.

The blonde blinked, tilting his head back as he considered. "Good question... no, I do not know... hm..." the blonde picked up a double handful of pebbles.

"Hey, no wait!" Izuku squeaked. Didn't they just have this conversation about one percent dead still being dead? "Stop! Monoma you're insane!"

A crystalline blue-white light arced over the blonde's body, his shape twisting and shrinking... A frozen miniature Monoma rolled across the floor in a globe the size of Izuku's fist. The blonde had frozen with a thoughtful tilt to his head and hands held out, palm up.

In a panic, barely thinking at all, the greenette picked up the globe and smashed it against the floor. Glass shards scattered and Monoma appeared, sprawled sideways, from the center of a white blob of light. "Huh," the blonde rubbed his temple as he sat up. "Yeah. You can use it on yourself... neat..." The copycat looked as if he might be high on the meta ability's electric rush. Perhaps the effect was amplified when the wielder turned the power on himself. "That was almost fun... kind of creepy suddenly looking at Midoriya the Godzilla impersonator though. Hey... look... your hair is all green, you know that? Wrong color for Godzilla, though..."

"Crazy. You are crazy and also high as kite," Izuku muttered, offering a hand to help the blonde

back to his feet. Monoma staggered and nearly fell again. "Seriously, do you have no common sense? At all?"

"Had it surgically removed by my mother. She's a doctor you know."

"Oh really? Good for her." Hopefully she would yell at her insane son about this... except Monoma had implied that his mother had no common sense, either so maybe not.

Izuku hadn't thought this through. He hadn't cleaned up the broken glass before picking up Monoma. Now he would either have to set the blonde back down and attend to the mess or take Monoma all the way back to the dorms and then come back here to clean. The greenette sighed, propped Monoma against the wall, and set about picking up the shards, careful so as not to slice himself. He should probably free the two plants, too, and clean all the resulting glass shards at the same time. In retrospect, he should have brought a broom.

"It's a lot like that guy Compress's power, isn't it?" Monoma mused. "There's not much information about him, but the League has this one member who can shrink people into marbles. Do you think he like, plays actual marbles with them afterwards? Do you think the League of Villains are secretly professional marble competitors? Is that a thing?"

Izuku focused in on the only sane part of his companion's statement. "Right. Compress. I saw that. I hadn't thought about it before but you're right. They're really similar powers."

"Do you think this was maybe Compress's brother's quirk before All For One gave it to you?" Monoma wondered.

"No," Izuku replied.

"Huh? I mean, quirks run in families, 1-A. You know that. Everybody knows that. It seems logical that it would belong to a relation of that Compress guy. What's the odds that two unrelated people with quirks like that have a run in with All For One?"

"Probably pretty good given how long that monster's been alive and how many people are on the planet," Izuku muttered. "It's not as if suspended animation quirks are unheard of. There are even quirked plants that can do similar things."

"Huh. So maybe it's just a coincidence you think?" Monoma did not sound convinced.

"Alright. That's cleaned up now," Izuku stowed the glass shards in a plastic container, the plants in his bag, and dragged Monoma back to his feet. The copycat seemed significantly more stable now, but still a bit off-kilter. Maybe Izuku should take him to the nurse's office rather than back to his dorm.

"I'm fine, really," Monoma replied as if reading Izuku's mind. "I said it before and I'll say it again: this quirk isn't built to hurt people. Believe me I know what it feels like when a quirk is built to kill and this is not that."

"What do those feel like then?"

"Nails on a chalkboard. The way that sounds, 1-A, that's how they feel. Some quirks... they're made for killing and they can be repurposed for something else but some of them are kind of like nuclear weapons--you could use one to destroy an approaching asteroid, saving all life on earth from certain doom, but that is not their primary purpose--and I can feel that. I can feel it and it's awful. There are powers that are just evil, 1-A."

That was a disturbing thought, and not one Izuku necessarily agreed with. "A weapon can't really be evil, can it? It's amoral. Its use might be evil."

"I knew a kid whose quirk sucked the happiness out of people, not just out of people around her but out of her, too. It was some kind of stockpiling quirk... building up all that emotional power for who knows what. It activated when she was six or so and was the passive sort, couldn't be turned off. Three people died because of that quirk," he muttered bitterly. "None of them did anything to deserve it, none of them decided to use it... that weapon... it used itself and it murdered three people. Quirks can absolutely be evil, 1-A. But your new one isn't. Be glad of that, I guess. All For One could have cursed you with anything."

It was hard to argue with that, any of it, and Izuku was, beyond a doubt, unbelievably lucky. Or unbelievably favored by an unbelievably powerful person. Here he was circling back to these questions again. What sort of blackmail, what kind of agreement, had stayed the Soulstealer's hand when Izuku brought Hirano back to the monster's lair?