Chapter 12: Daedalus and Icarus

Shouta sighed as he walked into the HPSC headquarters. After the fiasco that was the Autumnal Equinox festival, he wanted to talk to the kid himself.

"Hi, what can we do for you, sir?" the receptionist asked.

"I'm here to talk to Midoriya Izuku. I'm his guardian," Shouta answered.

"One second," the receptionist said as she grabbed the desk phone and called someone over to escort him.

Shouta tapped his foot impatiently as he waited. He pulled out his phone and checked his notifications to see an email about Hawks being approved for the new Heroics teacher and smirked to himself. Nedzu was nothing if not efficient in making sure his staff and students were cared for.

"Sir?" A man asked, coming up to him. "Are you here for Midoriya?"

"Yes," Shouta said, putting away his phone.

"I need verification that you're Midoriya's guardian," the man said with an exasperated look.

Shouta rolled his eyes as he reached into the satchel he'd brought with him and handed the man the proper forms. He watched as the man leafed through them and held them up to the light making sure they weren't forged and barely resisted rolling his eyes again.

"Alright, this way," the man said, handing the files back to Shouta.

"Sure you don't need to look through them one more time?" Shouta sniped.

The man lifted his brows as he turned back around. "Do you want to go see the traitor or not?"

Shouta huffed and tried to mentally warn himself from being sarcastic with anyone that worked here. "Lead the way," he said, waving his hand forward.

The man rolled his eyes, but turned back around and led Shouta deeper into the building. Through the door to the right of the receptionist, to the left, turn right, go up the stairs on the left and three doors down. The man unlocked the door and stepped to the side. "Use the buzzer next to the door when you want to leave and someone will let you out."

Shouta nodded and gave a brief affirmative before walking into the room. His eyes immediately found Midoriya sitting in the corner of the room, huddled in a ball. His usually bright verdant hair had dulled to a more sage color and there were bruises littering the limited skin that Shouta could see. "Problem Child?" He asked hesitantly, taking slow steps that he made sure were heavier than usual so the kid could hear him approaching.

Midoriya's head snapped up showing wide, green eyes staring at him. "Sensei?"

Shouta knelt down in front of his ki- his student and gave a soft smile. "How are you holding up, kid?"

Midoriya's eyes flickered to the door and then up to the corner behind Shouta. Shouta frowned and followed his vision to see a camera that was actively blinking. When Shouta looked back, Izuku raised his hands to show that they were cuffed together with a long chain with quirk-canceling cuffs. 'Sensei, I need to tell you a secret,' Midoriya signed to him.

Shouta looked back at the camera and adjusted his stance a bit to fully block Midoriya's body from the camera. His eyebrows furrowed at what the secret could be, and he only hoped that it wasn't the worst case scenario. 'Whatever it is, I'll help you out,' he signed back, secretly grateful the kid knew JSL.

'My quirk,' Midoriya started, 'it wasn't mine to begin with. I know it's hard to understand-'

Shouta quickly held his hands up to stop him from signing. 'If you're talking about it being All Might's, then I already know.'

Midoriya dropped his hands then raised them then dropped them again.

Shouta placed his hands over Midoriya's gently and gave them a light squeeze before raising his hands to sign. 'Nedzu got the kids to tell him about your quirk after his visit with you. The kids made me come in so that they knew they could trust Nedzu.'

Midoriya blinked at him a couple times before silently nodding. 'I guess that makes sense. They saw how you reacted when I was taken, so they knew they could trust you. They don't know the conversations you have behind closed doors, so they wouldn't know to trust Nedzu, Present Mic, and Midnight as well.'

Aizawa raised an eyebrow at his student. 'How did you know that Present Mic and Midnight are also trustworthy?'

Midoriya laughed. 'You're married to Present Mic. And you're both very close to Midnight, so it only makes sense.'

Shouta nodded and smirked at the kid. 'That brain you got on you is really smart, kid.'

Midoriya's vision grew hazy and Shouta began to panic. "Stop you guys. Sensei can't be here for very long. No, yeah, I know."

Shouta watched, confused, as the kid continued to talk to himself, sounding flustered as he argued with someone, or rather it seemed like multiple people. "You okay kid?"

Midoriya's vision snapped back into focus and he gave Shouta a nervous smile. 'Sorry,' he signed. The switch from vocal to nonvocal was a little startling. 'The voices,' he added, gesturing vaguely to his head which only made Shouta worry more, 'they like to add their two cents on everything.'

'What are you talking about?' Shouta asked. Had the HPSC made the kid go mad? Had he started to develop some form of Dissociative Identity Disorder from the trauma of everything? Had he already had it and Shouta never realized?

'It's part of the quirk, sensei,' Midoriya signed to him after tapping his knee to gain his attention. 'I can communicate with each of the previous holders of my quirk.'

Shouta dropped his head. "Godammit, I'm an idiot," he cursed, finally remembering that part of the explanation from the kids. Shinsou and Bakugou had explained about how Midoriya had full communication with the vestiges now due to experimentation with Shinsou's quirk. He looked back up to see Midoriya wringing his hands and watching Shouta nervously. 'Sorry, I just realized that I already knew that as well. Shinsou and Bakugou explained it to me,' Shouta explained, spelling out the kids' names as he hadn't found sign names for them yet. Yamada would have to be the one to do it given that he was actually deaf- he was getting off track and Midoriya was tapping his knee again.

'Sensei,' Midoriya signed, giggling. Shouta would give anything to hear the kid laugh more again. 'Just sign 'Purple' and 'Bomb' for them.'

Shouta chuckled. 'Are those the names you came up with for one another?'

Midoriya shook his head. 'Bomb came up with all the names. He's partially deaf, remember?'

Shouta nodded. It was something that Shouta knew, but it didn't come up very often except when Bakugou requested he speak louder or sign along with his lessons on certain days. 'Makes sense. Back to my original question: how are you holding up?'

Midoriya twisted his hands again and looked down. Shouta wanted to tap his knee to get the kid to look at him, but decided being patient in this matter would be the better choice. Midoriya finally looked up again and raised his hands. 'It could be worse. I kind of just want to go home. I'm honestly just tired, Sensei.'

Shouta's heart broke even more for the kid. He reached out and wrapped him up in a hug that Midoriya melted into which made him squeeze a little tighter. "We'll get you out kid, I promise. As soon as Naomasa is back in town we're bringing him straight here and getting this all sorted out, okay?"

Midoriya nodded against his shoulder. "I trust you, Sensei. Thank you for believing me."

"Of course, kid," Shouta whispered, glad the kid was talking. "And hey, I'm not just your Sensei anymore."

Midoriya pulled back, looking confused. "What do you mean?"

"I'm now your emergency guardian," Shouta smirked. "How do you think I got in here?"

"I- you-" Midoriya stuttered, looking lost. "I thought it was just 'cause you're my teacher."

Shouta chuckled. "That wouldn't be enough for them to let me in. Even with being a Pro Hero, they probably wouldn't have allowed it."

"Wait- how did Nedzu get in?" Midoriya asked.

"Nedzu has automatic guardianship over all of his students," Shouta explained. "It's part of the contract for attending UA. He put it into place when he opened the school so that he could easily make students wards of the schools in case they had a bad home situation. Even with the dorms in place, there's about 5 different wards right now."

"Oh," Midoriya said, rubbing his chin. "That makes a lot of sense actually."

Shouta hummed in agreement before his phone dinged. He pulled it out of his pocket to check the notification and saw a text from Hizashi about a fight in the dorms…again. He sighed as he put his phone away and looked back up to the student in front of him.

Midoriya was giving him an understanding, yet sad, look. "I'm sure it's important. Thank you for coming to visit me, Sensei."

"Just call me Aizawa, kid," Shouta said, ruffling Midoriya's hair. "Unfortunately, I have to go give out some suspensions apparently."

Midoriya winced, though it could have easily been missed if Shouta wasn't paying as close of attention. "Are they still fighting even though I'm gone?"

Shouta pondered softening the situation, but he could tell from the look in the kid's eyes that he knew the answer already. "Yeah. We've tried practically everything to get them to stop, short of moving students to different classes or expelling them and honestly I'm on the verge of expelling a couple of them."

"Please don't, Sens- Aizawa. They're caught up in fear and betrayal, even if it's misplaced. It was a trap from the beginning; they just don't know they fell into it," Midoriya pleaded, grabbing Shouta's hand.

Shouta shook his head. "They're training to be heroes, they should know better."

"We're only in our first year," Midoriya countered. "We may have been through a lot and had to speed run some of our lessons, but there's still a lot we need to learn."

Shouta sighed. "You're too smart for your own good, kid. Alright, I won't expel anyone, yet. If it gets too much worse than this, they're going to have to face something more severe than just detentions and suspension though. You understand that, don't you?"

"Yes," Midoriya said, nodding.

Shouta groaned as he stood up from his spot on the floor. "I'm sorry I have to leave so soon. I promise we'll get you out as soon as possible, okay?"

Midoriya smiled up at him, not leaving his spot on the floor. "Of course, thank you again for coming to visit me."

Shouta leaned down one more time to ruffle the kid's unruly and greasy hair. "Hopefully next time will be a little more than just a social visit."

Shouta turned towards the door and walked over to press the button the guard had mentioned earlier. The door immediately unlocked and a new guard was there to lead him out. Before the door closed, Shouta took one last look inside and almost wished he hadn't. Midoriya was once again curled up in a ball, silent tears tracking down his face.

Not even ten minutes after Aizawa had left, more HPSC officers came into the room, carrying equipment with them. Izuku watched them skeptically as they ignored his hunkered form in the corner.

As soon as they finished setting up whatever the machine was, two of the officers came over and picked him up under the shoulders and started dragging him to the chair.

"I can walk you know," Izuku snapped, digging his feet into the ground and trying to shake the men off.

"Shut up and sit down," one of them hissed, both of them gripping him harder and picking him up off the floor before essentially tossing him in the chair.

His hip hit the arm of the chair and Izuku barely suppressed his wince. Looks like another bruise to add to his growing collection.

"Due to receiving some new information from the Number One hero himself, we're trying something new today," one of the men said, sitting across from him and in front of the machine.

Izuku slumped further in the chair and closed his eyes in an effort not to roll them. "Mmhmm," he hummed noncommittally. "Excited to learn what the new info is."

One of the men behind him smacked him upside the head and he opened his eyes to glare at him. The man scoffed and forcefully turned his head to face the man sitting opposite him.

"As I said," the man repeated. "We're trying something new today and it requires your attention."

"Why do you deserve my attention when you're trying to make me confess to something I didn't do?" Izuku snapped, tired of the HPSC's creative methods to get him to confess.

"All you have to do is simply sit back and keep your eyes open, brat," the man hissed. "And if you won't, well," he grabbed a pair of forceps and twirled them in his fingers, "we can always force your eyes open.

Izuku glared at the man but did as he said even when he was suddenly staring at a bright light and his mind grew hazy, not so different from when he first goes under Hitoshi's quirk.

"Let me tell you the tale of the UA traitor," the man said. His voice was warped and Izuku could barely hear him, let alone see him with the light in his eyes that was constantly changing color. "Midoriya Izuku was born quirkless into a society that discriminates against those deemed useless. He found his way to a man that could give and take powers and accepted his offer of quirks in trade for information on the top hero school.

"Before getting into the school, Midoriya was able to trick All Might into believing that he was hero-worthy and gained his trust enough that All Might passed his quirk onto him. All Might then trained him until he was ready to take the UA entrance exams and, after passing, fulfilled his side of the trade to All for One by giving him detailed analyses on the teachers and students as well as school records. Does that sound right to you, kid?"

Izuku's eyebrows furrowed. His mind may be hazy, but the unmistakable voices of the vestiges persisted to insult the man anyway, breaking any sort of connection the man was attempting. Even though everything that was coming out of the man's mouth was a blatant lie, he spoke as if it was the holy gospel.

Izuku blinked when the man called out for a response again. He was finally able to look past the light and at the man himself who seemed worried at the response. "I'm pretty sure All Might tricked me."

"How did you do that?" the man asked, looking frightened. "Check his handcuffs," he demanded the other men. When everyone looked around in confusion, he shouted, "Now!"

The man standing behind him lifted Izuku's hands up and checked the cuffs that were on his wrist. "They're working fine, sir."

"How did you break the connection," the man demanded.

Izuku tilted his head at the man. "There was no connection to break, I don't know what you're talking about."

"No, we had you," the man hissed. "Your eyes went blank, the connection was made."

"Sir, I was dissociating," Izuku countered. "I don't know if you know this, but I do it quite a lot when you all try new methods on me."

"Just confess to being the damn traitor!" The man yelled at him.

"Yeah, no," Izuku said. "I don't think I will since y'know, it'd be a false confession."

The man threw his hands up in the air. "This is pointless! I'm not dealing with this brat!"

The man stormed out of the room and the other men quickly packed up the machine and followed behind him. Izuku sighed as the door closed behind the last person and he stood to go sit in the corner again.