Katsuki slunk into Izuku's room late that evening, shoulders hunched almost to his ears and hair
unusually deflated.
"I'm honestly surprised it took this long for you two to fight," Izuku said before Katsuki could get out his habitual "hey, nerd."
"You are?" the blonde raised an eyebrow. "You have so much faith in me."
"What? No, I don't mean you're always fighting--you haven't done that in forever and it's not what I expect you to do--I mean... you're under an enormous amount of stress and you don't have many people to talk to and Tokoyami's in an even worse situation except he has Dark Shadow and you're going to have polar opposite feelings because of who you are close to in the mess and so of course there was going to be a fight at some point and maybe if the teachers weren't so busy they would have--"
"Enough, nerd," Katsuki sighed. "I get it." The blonde ran fingers through his hair and took a seat on Izuku's rug. "I talk to Gang Orca and Three Ring and some of Best Jeanist and Gang Orca's other sidekicks. They're all about as mad as me, though, so we don't really, like, calm each other down, just make each other angrier."
Izuku considered his response carefully. Honesty wasn't everything... but perhaps he would be honest anyway. "Tokoyami does have a point. There is some reason to believe that Hawks might be a deep cover agent." Katsuki bared his teeth. "It's always possible that Hakamata died of Kamino complications and they used his death to cement a cover story, but after what I saw in Tartarus I don't think it very likely."
"What happened in Tartarus?"
"Hawks kissed Dabi," Izuku replied. "Right in front of me." Katsuki blinked. "They got Hawks out of the cell and he stood there in midair snogging the guy like they were in a movie or something. It was so rude."
"Rude?" Katsuki furrowed his brow.
"I was right there trying to fight them and they were ignoring me to make out," the greenette complained, playing up the petulance in his voice. If he cut a ridiculous enough image, Kacchan might forget to be angry and be confused instead.
"What the actual hell?"
"I know! So disrespectful!"
Katsuki shook his head and breathed out harshly. "Tokoyami and I have detention for two weeks and we both have to go to counseling."
"That's... probably not a bad thing," Izuku pointed out.
"It's so humiliating," Katsuki grumbled, head tilted towards the ceiling. "I don't need it."
"That's what I thought in junior high," Izuku muttered. He hadn't consciously thought about it much, but in retrospect his opinion of mental health services had been abysmal. The stigma ingrained in society did him--and countless others--a grave disservice. Though chances were he wouldn't have found a decent therapist, certainly not with what he could afford to pay. "If I hadn't thought that way maybe none of this would have happened."
"Huh?"
"Oh, not with... I presume most of this would have still happened? I probably wouldn't be here..." Where would he have ended up? Some vocational school maybe?
Katsuki took several seconds to process that, blinking owlishly and mouthing the words to himself, turning them over his mind. "What are you talking about, nerd?"
Wait. What was Izuku saying? Katsuki didn't know that Izuku had volunteered to be kidnapped. Only Nedzu knew that and here the greenette was so distracted and tired he'd blathered on as if Katsuki were in the loop. He had already spilled so many secrets that day. Somehow it had slipped his mind. "Never mind, sorry."
"Oh no you don't. What the hell aren't you saying, nerd?"
"You don't need to know," Izuku replied, turning away. No one needed to know. Especially not Kacchan.
"No. Don't you do that. What are you talking about? What do you mean you wouldn't be here?" "Leave it alone, Kacchan."
"No! I am not in the mood to leave it alone. I'm tired of everyone treating me like--like some volatile little gremlin that can't be trusted with information because I might run off and try to kill somebody!" The blonde must have had some frustrating conversations with sidekicks, teachers, and perhaps Gang Orca in the last week. "You will tell me or so help me god--"
"I volunteered!" Izuku shouted, giving in. Katsuki fell silent. "I volunteered, Katsuki."
"What... what do you mean, what are you even talking about?" the blonde asked, suddenly small and quiet.
"I remember the day I was kidnapped. I remember having a silent passenger with me all through school, watching me, talking to me just... waiting. Getting to know me. Deciding whether I would
be a good fit, and in the end they asked me flat out if I would agree to be their host for a their mission and I said yes! Because I didn't care if I lived or died. I was complicit. I was suicidal. I didn't even notice I was suicidal. I didn't care what happened to me so why not be a tool for a week? Maybe I'd do something useful with my life for once rather than just be a quirkless, worthless nobody!"
Kacchan paled. "My fault," he whispered, covering his wide eyes with his hands and shaking his head slowly. "All my fault. Oh god--it's my fault. I said that--I said you should jump--" off the roof and hope for a quirk in his next life. The blonde raked his nails down his face, cutting red scratches onto his cheeks as if he were crying blood. "I'm sorry, Izuku. I'm so god damned sorry . I spent the whole week thinking I killed you, that you died after I told you to, and I did kill you I'm so sorry--"
"I'm not dead," Izuku replied sharply.
"You're not the same," the blonde whispered, dropping his hands but looking pointedly away to hide the tears budding in his eyes.
"Neither are you." Change wasn't always a bad thing. "You were so sweet," Katsuki choked. "And I ruined you."
That wasn't right at all. "I'm not ruined." He was better than he used to be... in many ways at least. Some pieces, though... maybe Katsuki wasn't so far off the mark.
"You could have been happy."
"I can be happy now ." Maybe. Was he happy? He would be a lot happier if his country wasn't falling rapidly towards a civil war.
"I'm so sorry."
"You already said that."
"I'm so sorry, Izuku," the blonde repeated, tugging at his own hair as if planning to pull it all out.
"It wasn't really you," Izuku said eventually, for lack of anything better to say.
"What the hell do you mean by that?"
"Who you were... it might as well be a lifetime ago. Why hold it against yourself now? It's not you."
Katsuki scoffed. "Well, why don't we let all the convicts out of prison after a year? If people become brand new people every year, isn't it wrong to hold old crimes against them?"
"Well, first off this isn't--it wasn't a crime and the rest of that..." got complicated quickly. "Is probably above our pay grade."
"I never meant for any of this to happen," Katsuki said miserably.
"I don't think anybody did," Izuku replied.
"Clearly somebody did because they stole you and–"
"It wasn't supposed to go this way," Izuku interrupted. "I was supposed to turn up back at home
after a week or so like nothing ever happened. I wasn't supposed to remember anything at all. I was supposed to suddenly be excellent at darts but that was it. It was--everything beyond that was an accident."
"Doesn't make it right or unintentional like you've been implying."
"I'm not sure it was really wrong." Once he'd thought what was done to him was vile, but now...
"What the hell do you mean." It was a statement, not a question. "Of course it was wrong. Kidnapping little junior high kids to use as body suits for whatever creepy purpose is a dirty, awful, bastard play."
"I agreed," Izuku shrugged.
"You were ready to die!" Katsuki snarled. "That's not consent. You weren't in your right mind and who knows what that bastard was doing to your head. Even if you did consent in your right mind that's still fucked up because no rational, reasonable person would ever use a kid like that!" Katsuki, of course, didn't have the whole picture of what Izuku had been used for and why and was clearly filling in the blanks with the darkest pieces he could imagine.
"But it's fine to send students a year or so older out into internships or work-study to fight villains while they attend UA?" Izuku asked, eyebrow raised. "There are UA students who have skipped a grade or two, you know. It does happen. There have been people with provisional licenses who were younger than me when I agreed to become a child solider under someone else's control. Why are UA's child soldiers fine but I can't consent to be a weapon against All For One and Hirano Niko for a week?"
Katsuki gaped at him. "A weapon against--what the--why are you defending this person, Izuku? What's--I don't understand! When we talked about how they used you to kill that guy you were so ripped up you looked like a god damned scrapbook! They destroyed you for their own agenda when they should have fucking solved their problems themselves! And now you're suddenly okay with being used like this? What have they done to you?"
"I mean... yeah, maybe, but I didn't actually kill Hirano. All For One killed him. I just took him back to his master for judgment. My shoulder-sitter made me a deal about what violence I would accept and they kept it. What they did was, well, wrong in many ways I guess," but someone had to do it. "It wasn't--they weren't a monster. They felt kind of guilty about it, too, kept trying to sweeten the deal for me--that's not the point."
"Well what is then?"
"They did something bad but I don't think they're a bad person. They tried to do the right thing and just made some questionable choices along the way..." He hadn't put all of this into words before. In the privacy of his own thoughts, he was even more sympathetic to his "kidnapper" than he dared say aloud to his oldest friend.
"By stealing a child battle slave to... fight All For One and that Hirano guy, they were doing the right thing?"
"By finding a quirkless person who was willing to help them go against All For One and take down a crazy serial killer," Izuku replied, "they were doing the right thing. We had an agreement. They kept their part of the deal."
Katsuki shook his head. "You have Stockholm syndrome or something."
"I don't I just... I just..." He couldn't put it into words. "Things are better because of what they did with me. To me. For me. One of those."
"Better." "Yes." "Really." "Yes."
"I don't know... I don't know anymore... about anything." Katsuki shook his head. "Who even are you?"
"Midoriya Izuku. Fossa. Undercover hero in training." "You sound so sure of that."
Izuku shrugged. "I got a lot of thoughts sorted out recently." Not all of them, though. He certainly hadn't sorted out the tangled mess that resulted from killing Moonfish, but that was a recent development. He'd work on it.
"I don't know what to say." They sat in silence for a time.
"What was it you needed to tell us, Midoriya?" Nedzu asked him, Aizawa gazing at him warily.
Izuku really should have sent an email. God, this was going to sound insane. "So, um..." How should he start? Nedzu cocked his head and steepled his paws expectantly. "So I was asleep yesterday and having a really unpleasant dream about dead people..." Wrong. Abort. Aizawa's stern expression morphed into bewildered concern. "When... well, you remember what All For One said about quirk ghosts?"
"Ah," Nedzu--bless him--jumped to the correct conclusion, sparing Izuku the pain of explaining aloud. "You encountered the quirk ghost of the MLA general Tamiya Kuma?"
"Yeah."
Aizawa's expression turned abruptly from concerned to suspicious. "And what did this quirk ghost say?" Nedzu asked, curiosity almost palpable in the air about him. It really was a remarkable phenomenon, wasn't it? Accustomed to sharing so many old memories, Izuku had lost track of how borderline-supernaturally amazing the idea of a quirk ghost was.
"Not too much," Izuku admitted. "But one thing seemed kind of important. We talked about All For One's "doctor friend" who steals corpses. The nomu are his masterworks."
Nedzu's ears flared upwards, probably the equivalent of raising one's eyebrows. "This doctor was alive during the MLA war, then?"
"Yeah," Izuku nodded. "Kuma didn't know his name or, what she said was, 'I don't know. I don't
think I ever knew.' She said that he was an actual, licensed medical practitioner in Japan and that he often worked in abandoned hospitals during the war. She also said that Switcher would probably know the doctor's real name."
"Hm. It is really too bad that we cannot just call Switcher in Black Forest and ask," Nedzu muttered to himself, "but perhaps we do not need a name. Presuming this doctor's proclivities have not changed, we can likely check every abandoned hospital in Japan for evidence of his presence. Or, perhaps he has taken up residence in an active hospital. Regardless, there are only so many of them and the list can certainly be narrowed down. Thank you very much. I know this must have been a rather awkward conversation. Was there anything else of note in your conversation with Tamiya, Midoriya?"
"Well, she told me that when I talk to Switcher I'm supposed to tell him he's an idiot. She thinks she's probably buried in Canada. Things like that, but that's not really important."
"So, All For One took Tamiya's quirk and then killed her?" Nedzu asked with unnervingly clinical curiosity.
"Yeah."
"Does the ghost remember her death? Or does her memory only extend until the time at which All For One stole her power from her?"
That was... a really good question. Nedzu's clinical attitude was infectious enough to ease the ache of reflecting on Kuma's violent end. "I don't think she remembers everything of her life. Why else would she say 'I don't think I ever knew' about the doctor's identity? But... I remember All For One saying 'No need to be shy. Let me see your pretty face. There we are. The fear of death becomes you' just before he killed her... and I think he probably took her quirk before he said that so... I don't really know. I can't think of any rational explanation for how information from an quirk's previous owner could be passed to a new holder after the quirk transferred."
"I can, however," Nedzu replied.
"Is this really the point?" Aizawa demanded suddenly. "What do you mean, Eraserhead?" Nedzu asked him.
"He called this woman Kuma," Aizawa pointed out. Oh. Izuku had done that, hadn't he? "Like she's his friend . That's certainly not a healthy attitude to have towards some vestige of a dead woman and really... really concerning given that we're talking about an MLA general."
"The woman's former rank is irrelevant," Nedzu waved Aizawa away, "and nearly every living being has struck up a strong friendship with a favorite character from history, legend, print or film. Midoriya is certainly not neglecting his current situation in favor of escaping into a realm of fantasy, nor have I seen any evidence that he cannot perform his duties as a student and hero impartially, thus I see no problem, only an opportunity. The original owner is more likely than any of us to provide good advice as to the quirk's use." Nedzu cocked his head, "has any offer of assistance on that front been made, Midoriya?"
"Uh, yeah, actually," Izuku grimaced. "It was before I really knew what was going on so I didn't realize it wasn't just my typical weird dreams."
Aizawa bristled. "Maybe I wouldn't be so concerned if the entire country weren't currently facing a terrorist threat from the former League of Villains plus a bunch of neo-MLA nutcases! How can
we trust Midoriya if he's a sympathizer?
Izuku froze. This is why he should never tell anyone anything.
This was an actual nightmare, the thing he'd feared since he first realized he'd been having dream snowball fights with Destro. The heroes couldn't trust him. How could they? Even Hawks had turned on them (presumably) and the last thing the man had done before that was hand out copies of The Book of Destro. Whether or not those copies had contained secret messages Hawks needed to pass to Night Eye due to being a triple agent under constant surveillance was irrelevant.
Nobody would trust Izuku anymore. They'd keep him away from sensitive missions and information at best. More likely they'd throw him out of UA, maybe throw him out of UA and into a jail cell for good measure.
If they expelled him, where would he even go? He'd stopped thinking of backup plans. If he couldn't be an undercover hero what could he be? He would be back to quirkless, useless--wait. He wasn't quirkless. He wasn't useless. Provided they didn't decide to lock him up and throw away the key, he had plenty of options. Izuku could strike out on his own, head to Black Forest to try to find Switcher and some answers (and call the old general an idiot as requested). Izuku could head north, find Shriker and join Isomorph; everything he knew about the organization suggested he'd fit right in. Izuku could take business classes and open a bakery.
Somehow none of these thoughts made him feel better. Of course not. None of these things would make his friends, classmates and teachers trust him again. The hostility of people he'd grown to care about, that was what hurt.
All these thoughts passed through Izuku's mind in a whirlwind before he even noticed Nedzu's condescending glare. The principal shook his head at Aizawa as if saying "you can do better than that." Nedzu pressed one of his desk's many buttons and a screen flickered to life on the nearest wall. A moment later it began to show footage from a surveillance camera. "Tartarus consulted with me about security improvements, as they should have when the detention levels were built in the first place," the principal said dryly. "I was given access to the tapes of the breakout and permission to share them when necessary so long as the recordings do not leave my possession."
Izuku appeared on the screen, automatic weapon clutched in hand. Past-Izuku abruptly flattened himself against a wall. Oh. This was the fight with the ice guy. The news said his name might be Geten or Heten or something. Izuku barely remembered what the two combatants had shouted at each other in the heat of battle. He heard himself rail against the neo-MLA beliefs his enemy professed. "I was there!" Izuku shouted and Nedzu cut the footage.
"You were there?" Aizawa stared at Izuku, profoundly mistrustful. The greenette shifted uncomfortably.
"That is absolutely not the point, Aizawa," Nedzu said dryly. "The MLA is gone. It has been gone for a very long time. There are plenty of people in Japan who may sympathize with the beliefs of the original Meta Liberation Army but sympathizing with the philosophy a long defunct terrorist organization," Izuku repressed the urge to scowl at the choice of words, "is not a crime nor, in this case, particularly morally questionable. Such sympathizers are, in fact, less likely to sympathize with neo-MLA factions for the reasons that Midoriya so eloquently explained while in the middle of a firefight defending Tartarus from the PLF incursion."
Aizawa gave Izuku a searching look. "You really think that's true? That the original MLA would have despised the PLF?"
"Yes. One of Destro's generals was quirkless. I remember one time when the MLA high command liberated a compound where meta humans had been torturing and murdering quirkless people. Destro and the rest weren't meta human supremacists. Their philosophy looked nothing like the PLF ideas of "might makes right" and "strongest quirks should be in charge." And they hated everything to do with All For One."
"Destro's book is what they're spouting, Nedzu," Aizawa pointed out. "PLF members have been seen quoting the thing on live television."
"Destro wasn't in his right mind when he wrote any of that," Izuku protested. "They drugged him and–"
Nedzu cocked his head. "How do you know that Midoriya? My understanding is that Tamiya died long before the end of the war. She could not know of this."
"Because none of the stuff in the book looks even vaguely like anything Destro ever said before and a lot doesn't even make grammatical sense?" Izuku tried.
"So you aren't certain," Aizawa said, arms folded. "Well... not completely I guess."
"Hmmm..."
"Aizawa," Nedzu sighed. "You think you are helping but you are not. Midoriya did not ask for this," Nedzu shot him a look that said quite clearly, or, rather he did, but likely not this part, at least not explicitly, "and has done nothing to warrant your suspicion other than try to adjust to the shocking changes that have been imposed on him. Watch him as you would watch any other student working through emotional turmoil, but do not encourage him to turn away from and mistrust us by making baseless accusations. That serves no purpose."
Aizawa sighed heavily. "I suppose you're probably right."
"I am always right, Aizawa. Thank you for coming to us with this information, Midoriya. It will be put to good use. Any other information that this ghost imparts to you will be greatly appreciated if shared, and do try to learn exactly how the ghost transfer works for me. I am exceedingly curious. You may return to your dorms. Aizawa and I have some more things to discuss."
Izuku hurried back to his room, head bowed. Aizawa didn't trust him. Aizawa would never trust him again. Aizawa had been the first one to tell him he could be a hero, the one who helped him when his life was in tatters and he didn't know what to do. Now all of that meant nothing.
Given their talk the night before, Kacchan might have similar doubts about Izuku.
He'd always known it would end like this. That didn't mean the greenette was ready for it. He wanted to be angry, furious at being called into question like that but he'd kept so many secrets... There were so many things wrong with him that the suspicion was well and truly justified. He couldn't be angry at Aizawa for being rational . All he could realistically feel was sad.
But Nedzu still trusted him. Probably. The principal could have been pretending in order to get Izuku to let his guard down. Aizawa and Nedzu could be busily discussing how to catch the greenette out on a lie, how to bring his twisted loyalties to light.
He would have to keep his head down.