Chapter 23

Chapter Text

"Okay," Mic-sensei said clapping his hands together and rubbing them enthusiastically, "where to start?"

Izuku kind of wished Hitoshi was there to make communication easier—he was at his internship with Miss Joke—but that was the entire point of this session with Mic-sensei.

"Communication is extremely important in the field, so we need to find a way that is easier than writing on a whiteboard and not reliant on others." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "All Might gave me a list of the quirks you will probably manifest. Right now you've got access to blackwhip, smokescreen, and float. Is that correct?"

Izuku moved blackwhip up and down to indicate yes. He had access to Nana's quirk but he wasn't sure if he was using it instinctively or the whole weightless thing had come as part of his own quirk since he had no actual form. Either way he could float, manipulate blackwhip enough to fight with it or hold a pen and write, and produce smoke in varying amounts.

"Okay, what about the other quirks?" Mic-sensei asked. "Danger sense?"

Izuku shook the blackwhip to indicate no.

Shinomori Hikage's vestige wasn't sure his quirk would work for Midoriya in his ghost form. Apparently danger sense came with a near-blinding headache to warn when something was wrong. Honestly, it sounded counterintuitive. What was the use of knowing something bad was about to happen when it left you incapacitated enough to not be able to deal with it?

"Okay," Mic-sensei said, pulling a list from his back pocket. He squinted at the appalling scribble that was All Might's handwriting. "So that leaves Gearshift and Fa Jin. Any idea what either of them do?"

Midoriya grabbed the whiteboard marker with blackwhip and wrote, "Not really. Neither of them will talk to me."

"They talk to you?" Mic-sensei squawked in surprise.

"The vestiges of each quirk are inside One for All," Midoriya wrote, trying to explain something even he still found incredible. "Even mine."

Once he recovered from the shock Mic-sensei smirked. "That gives a whole new meaning to 'talking to yourself' then, doesn't it?"

Izuku let black whip ripple in what they'd established early on to mean that he was laughing.

"Okay then," Mic-sensei said, still smiling even as he headed back to his desk, "looks like the first step for our mini-internship is research."

~*~

"I want All Might dead!" Shigaraki Tomura ranted, disintegrating several glasses and a stool before getting his temper under control.

"Perhaps Sensei can offer some advice," Kurogiri suggested, tired of trying to reason with a young adult throwing a tantrum like a three-year-old child.

"Sensei," Shigaraki said in wonder, apparently not having considered it himself. "Yes, open a warp gate. We're going to Sensei. He can give me more Nomu." He rubbed over the scratches on his neck, grimacing in distaste when his fingers came back bloody. "All Might barely beat my first Nomu. There's no way he'd be able to beat a whole army of them."

Kurogiri had to agree, though he was reluctant to do so. Somewhere inside him, in a place he had no memory of, was the belief that All Might would save anyone who needed it, even Kurogiri. The thought that the number one hero might die at the hands of countless Nomu saddened him deeply.

"What are you waiting for? Open a warp gate."

Reluctantly Kurogiri did as he was ordered.

~*~

"Iida," Shoto said, too startled by the boy's appearance to maintain his usual expressionless tone.

"Todoroki," Iida said, nodding and moving his arms in his strangely robotic way.

When Shoto had been younger—and was being dragged to hero functions and awards nights and such by his father—Shoto had actually wondered if the youngest Iida son was some kind of robot rather than an actual boy. Considering the metal suit of armor he was now wearing, that was apparently his hero costume, Shoto couldn't help remember all of the conspiracy theories he'd come up with as a kid to explain why the Iida family was trying to pass off a robot as their son. He very nearly smirked—he'd been spending too much time around Bakugo—before managing to smooth his features back to neutrality.

"I had no idea you'd be doing an internship with Manual at the same time as me," Iida said, sounding rather nervous.

"Same," Shoto replied.

"Well, I guess we must make the most of it, together, of course, because the test of a true hero is to be able to…work with…any other hero…who may or may not be…"

Shoto just waited, maintaining the neutral expression as he let Iida dig himself into a hole. They'd never really liked each other—not that they'd had much time to associate at the functions—but it had been clear even from a young age that their personalities clashed horribly. Shoto was quiet, observant, and only spoke when he had something worth saying. Iida spoke non-stop and lectured everyone on everything as if he were some kind of expert instead of just a clueless kid.

Shoto would never say it out loud, but he'd been so very relieved when he'd learned that Iida had transferred schools after Izuku's death.

"Patrol," Manual said poking his head into the change room, cutting off Iida's increasingly frantic ramble, "starts in five minutes. I'll meet you in the lobby. Don't be late."

"Yes, sir," Iida and Shoto said at the same time. Shoto very nearly rolled his eyes when Iida side-eyed him as if he hadn't expected him to show Manual any respect.

"I am surprised," Iida said, genetically incapable of being quiet apparently, "to find you here. How were you offered internships without the sport's festival? I was of the belief that was the way it worked at UA."

"It used to be," Shota said, not bothering to explain the event that changed everything. It was Iida's reason for transferring to Ketsubutsu Academy after all.

"So how are you here? Did you request this internship yourself? Or did your father get involved and perhaps—"

"Aizawa-sensei chose the best agency for each of us."

"Oh," Iida said, looking uncomfortable at the mention of the teacher for 1A, "I read in the papers that he almost died protecting the class at the USJ attack."

"The reports are not completely inaccurate," Shoto said slowly, not sure how much he wanted to share of the experience. The news articles didn't mention Midoriya or his intervention, but that was partially to protect his identity and partially to make it seem that some of Shigaraki's allies had turned on him when ordered to kill children.

No one was registered as having the quirks Midoriya possessed as a ghost—not even Midoriya Izuku when he'd been alive.

Instead of answering the endless questions that Iida continued to throw at him, Shoto asked one of his own.

"Why are you here?"

Manual was a relatively unknown hero compared to both of their families, but at least a water quirk and an ice quirk were compatible in their applications and drawbacks. What the hell did speed have in common with Manual's quirk?

It would seem that the blunt question had Iida stumped. For the first time since running into each other a half hour ago the boy was quiet and Shoto found that very suspicious. He understood Iida not wanting to intern with his family—Shoto was of the same mind—but with the recent attack on Iida's older brother by the hero killer…

Shoto's thoughts stumbled to a halt.

The hero killer.

The villain who'd attacked Ingenium, Iida's adored older brother, in Hosu…

The same city Manual was based.

Fuck.

Iida talked about following rules; ranted about it endlessly in fact.

He was rude and stubborn and never listened to anyone's advice.

But was he stupid enough to go after the hero killer alone?

Shoto rubbed a hand over his forehead, massaging the ache blooming behind his eyes, when he realized the answer was most definitely "yes."

Fuck.