Chapter 10

Chapter Text

"Yagi," Mic said, glad to finally get the man to answer his phone. Nedzu had given All Might the day off—his injury was clearly being aggravated by the stress—but when he hadn't answered his phone the first couple times Mic had been very worried that the number one hero had gone on patrol as All Might rather than stay and rest at home.

"Present Mic?" Yagi asked, thankfully recognizing Mic's voice—probably from his radio show since they barely knew each other in real life.

"Yeah, you can just call me Mic. All the rest of the staff do."

"Okay," Yagi said tiredly. "How can I help you, Mic?"

"We have a situation at the school and Nedzu asked me to make sure that you don't come into the school in your ah…hero costume."

"What sort of situation?"

"I'm guessing you haven't seen the Internet yet this morning."

"I usually avoid it," Yagi said quietly. "Did the news about Midoriya leak?"

"Yeah, but not from any of our students," Mic said, glad to be able to reassure the man on that point. They really, really needed to keep that part quiet. "Midoriya Inko went on a bender last night. Told anyone who would listen that All Might killed her quirkless son while training the next generation of bullies. The headlines are all a variation of that accusation."

"Shit," Yagi muttered in English.

"Yeah," Mic agreed. "Nedzu is working with the PR team to try and counter the accusation in the public arena, but the public is outraged and reporters are storming the campus."

"The security gates aren't stopping them?"

"Not when someone in the group has a disintegration quirk. The main gate is nothing but dust." Mic rubbed his hand tiredly down his face. "The alarms went off and Cementoss has built a temporary barrier, but we've already had to threaten to arrest several reporters for trespassing. It's not working of course. Freedom of the press is enshrined in our democracy and I get it. I know why we need it, but right now that freedom is putting innocent kids in danger. Honestly, after what happened to Bakugo—"

"What happened to Bakugo?" Yagi asked urgently.

"Oh, yeah, sorry. I forgot you weren't at the staff meeting this morning." Mic took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then tried to be as informative with as few words as possible. "Sometime after her drunken accusations we believe Midoriya Inko confronted Bakugo while he was alone. His injuries were consistent with a telekinetic quirk pulling on individual organs inside his body. He looked like hell on the outside but the scans of his internal organs are completely horrifying."

"Is he okay? Was Recovery Girl able to help?"

"He's fine," Mic was quick to assure. "We're lucky he came to the school when he did. Chiyo says delaying medical treatment even a couple more hours probably would have killed him."

"Shit," Yagi whispered vehemently. "Is Mrs. Midoriya in custody?"

"Not yet," Mic said, sounding as frustrated as he felt. "Bakugo won't tell us who did it. We're waiting for Naomasa to confirm what we suspect, but we may have another problem. Bakugo says his parents kicked him out last night and without them to press charges on his behalf we're going to need to be creative."

"Creative how?" Yagi asked suspiciously, inadvertently reminding Mic how little they knew each other.

"Creative as in Shota and I both have emergency foster licenses. If necessary we'll take Bakugo into our home and press charges on his behalf."

"You and Aizawa?"

"Are married, yes. We also have a son. His name came up in the meeting last night."

"Shinsou Hitoshi? That's why you both hesitated."

"Can you blame us? Hitoshi missed out on the hero classes because his quirk is non-physical and useless against robots. Even with a powerful quirk Midoriya was unable to survive Bakugo's brutality. Hitoshi has been training with Shota and myself for several years now so he may have been able to avoid the worst of that blast, but he still would have been seriously injured."

"And with an instructor like me—"

"Enough, Yagi." Mic cringed at the realization he'd just cut off the number one hero and spoken to him as if he were a fifteen-year-old student, but it was necessary. "Teaching is a skill we trained years to develop. I don't know why the HPSC got involved or why they gave you a license for qualifications you haven't learned, but as my husband said, the HPSC set you up to fail. If we'd known—if any of us had known—no one would have assumed you were capable of making the decisions that were left in your hands."

"For what it's worth," Yagi said tiredly, "I'm sorry. I should have asked for help instead of assuming I had it under control."

"Hindsight is perfect vision," Mic pointed out. They'd all been victims of their own hubris at one time or another. All Might had been the number one hero in Japan for decades. It was a reasonable expectation that his self-confidence would be high.

Until it wasn't.

"Yagi, I know it's probably none of my business but… Are you alone? Do you have a partner or friend? Someone close? Someone you can turn to?"

Yagi huffed a sad laugh. "I never found the time."

"Too many people to save," Mic said, knowing how easily a job like pro-hero could swallow a person whole. He and Shota had been so lucky to have each other. The staff at UA, and even the support staff at the hero agencies he and Shota contracted with, were all great but no substitute for a solid, personal relationship. But coworker support was better than the big, fat nothing Yagi had right now. "You have my number, and Shota's, and the rest of the staff at UA. Promise me you'll use them, Yagi. You're not alone in this." Mic cringed internally when he unintentionally repeated the words that had set Midoriya Inko on a path of destruction, but they were words Yagi needed to hear.

"Thanks, Mic," Yagi said in a quiet voice. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay, get some rest. Just remember not to come to the school in uniform."

"Will do." He hesitated a moment. "And…thanks, Mic. I really appreciate your support."

"You're welcome, big guy. I'll see you tomorrow."

~*~

"Okay, now what," Banjo asked skeptically.

They'd managed to pull the consciousness of Midoriya's ghost into the quirk but he was almost entirely covered in a green misty haze that made it impossible for him to talk.

Okay, one way communication it was!

"Hi, Midoriya," Nana said, moving forward with a welcoming smile on her face. "Apologies for the strange way we're meeting for the first time, but we thought it was better to reach out as soon as possible."

"He's probably fanboying right now," Midoriya's vestige said, giggling softly. "He? Me? Er…We? We researched Shimura Nana after All Might explained who you were. Your quirk is amazing but it was the way you applied it to your hero fights that was truly fascinating. We checked a few of the others we suspected were previous holders but that information wasn't really available and what I… um… we did find was pretty inaccurate now that I know you all."

"I'm starting to understand why one Midoriya has their mouth covered," Banjo said with a laugh. "Imagine the headache if they both started muttering like that."

"We'd never get a word in," En agreed.

"Rude," Midoriya said, cutting his mutter storm off mid word but grinning cheekily and obviously not offended. "Can you understand us, Mido-bro?" He shook his head before the other Midoriya could even attempt to answer. "Yeah, that's not going to work for me. How about Ghost-me?" Ghost Midoriya rolled his eyes. "Non-vestige me?"

"How about we just call you Izuku and him Midoriya," Nana suggested, hopefully forestalling another mutter storm.

"Works for me," Izuku said. "You good?"

Midoriya nodded his head slowly, apparently having to work against the mist just to move slightly.

"Okay, we have no idea how long we can hold this connection so we'll get right to it," Yoichi said, taking control of the conversation. He turned to Midoriya. "You had a hidden quirk while you were alive. Unfortunately the activation requirement seems to have been that you needed to die."

"You're thinking of that thing Bakugo said in middle school, right?" Izuku said, obviously knowing himself well.

He grinned when Midoriya nodded again.

"We're calling it 'ghost,' but we're not sure if you're stuck following Bakugo or if you're free to move around, maybe visit other people."

"Not Mom," Izuku said, frowning at his ghostly counterpart. "Maybe try thinking about All Might or Mr. Aizawa. No luck? What about Recovery Girl? Can you sort of attach to her when she leaves the room?"

"Oh, wow, it worked. It actually worked," Nana said as their perspective switched to standing behind and just a little to the left of Recovery Girl as she moved into her office.

"Don't get too excited," Izuku said, sounding far older than the fifteen-year-old child he represented. "We haven't left the infirmary yet. We may just be able to move around Bakugo, not actually leave him."

"True," Nana conceded, "but still, we've proven that 'ghost' is more flexible than just a single perspective."

"Oh, Midoriya, here's the best part," Izuku said, smiling at the exact copy of himself. "One for All is still with you and you have the vestiges here"—he held his hands open, palms up, and twisted to indicate the other figures in the room—"to teach you how to use them." He nodded, apparently able to read his ghostly version accurately. "We'll need to be creative but I have no doubt we'll find a way." He giggled softly. "Plus Ultra!"