He Who Protects
Chapter 6
The implications of The Emperor's tale slapped Tanaka across her face, sending her reeling. She stared at the god-like man, forgetting the heretical thought in her pondering. A sad smile sat upon his face, a new side to him that none had ever seen.
Abject loneliness.
"This Emperor," she mumbled. "He gave you all of his power, and you saw it as a curse."
"Not all of his power." The Emperor schooled his features. "At least, not at first. Doing so would have defeated the purpose of his plans. This was the smallest portion of his power with which he could reasonably imbue me without destroying my mind and body."
Tanaka paused, nervous, her eyes flitting to her recording apparatus. Imperial Gothic symbols, light green and fuzzed with static, dashed across the device's screen. She swallowed the lump in her throat and stretched her hand out to turn off the device.
"Leave it," he said. "I wish for humanity to know both me and the reasons for all I have done."
Her hand dropped to her side, swallowing once more. "Why did you not create any sons like the previous Emperor? Why did you not sire any children?"
The Emperor's melancholic smile returned. "Creating sons would have caused history to repeat itself. Humanity eventually would have been thrown into yet another civil war." His eyes shifted, lingering on the portrait of his friends. "As for having my own? My incorporation of the Emperor changed my genetics. I am human, but I am also so much more than that. I am unable to produce offspring with any human in existence."
Clearing her throat, Tanaka looked away from the Emperor. Her eyes fell upon the portrait. A tan woman with a white hair and bunny ears, at the back of the group, sat cheek-to-cheek with a young, green-haired man with burning white eyes.
Her grin was blinding while his never quite reached his flaming eyes.
"What did you do next?" she coughed out.
The Emperor was silent for a time, his unreadable eyes locked onto the portrait.
"I meditated and sorted through my newfound knowledge and memories." The Emperor's words were slow, purposeful. "I sat for three weeks and used the warp to catch glimpses of the past, the present, and several possible futures. It was akin to watching a holovid through a cracked lens. My power was in its infancy, but it provided me with a start."
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Izuku's gaze fell upon the smoking wreckage of the Kamino Ward. News programs had dubbed the phenomenon "The Kamino Incident", perpetrated by an unknown villain of limitless power.
The names, "All For One" and "Shimura", flitted through his enhanced mind as a distorted phantom of the man vanished into inky, black smoke. Broken whispers from the immaterium buzzed in his ears, chanting the villain's name, but he couldn't make out any more.
Rewinding the scene and pausing it, Izuku stared at the broken, shattered face of his favourite hero. The dead man's eyes stared at a spot just behind Izuku.
He turned and saw nothing beyond the dilapidated ruin he stood in. Sirens and yells rang in the distance. Izuku pushed the sounds from his mind, his eyes narrowing beneath his cowl.
Fragmented, spasming streams of incandescent light furled about him, but he saw no clear path. Izuku growled.
Turning back, Izuku stared into All Might's eyes and found no answers. 'A bit of help would be nice, Emperor.'
"The answer is there, Izuku Midoriya," the deity replied, 'but you must learn to stand on your own two feet with the power at your disposal.'
"Damn gods," he grumbled. Echoes of amused chuckles faded into the back of his mind. "What are you looking at, All Might? Your enemy is before you. Which future provides the best outcome?"
Izuku turned to follow All Might's broken stare. 'Northwest? What lies to the northwest?'
His eyes widened. "Is this the best path? Thankfully, it is a relatively short distance."
With a flash, Izuku disappeared into the aether.
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Refuse and mildew assaulted his nose as Izuku appeared in an alley near his destination. A sneer lined his face at the smell. Pulling his cowl down, Izuku walked out of the backstreet and onto the busy thoroughfare.
People shot glances up at him, confusion filling their eyes. 'They must think I'm a new hero due to my stature.'
He nodded down at the passersby. Those in front of him parted before his towering figure, their staring eyes wide.
The crowd soon thinned and he stood before a giant metal and concrete gate inlaid with the glinting gold letters "U.A". Stooping, Izuku pressed the lone button on the intercom system.
A bored sigh crackled from the speaker. "Welcome to U.A. If you are a reporter, please return during a scheduled press conference. If not, how may I help you, sir or ma'am?"
"I'm here to speak with Principal Nezu."
A camera swivelled up to properly see him. Izuku crossed his arms and glared at the glinting lens. "It is a matter of utmost urgency."
"I'm sure it is," the woman on the other end muttered. "Name?"
"Izuku Midoriya."
"And do you have an appointment Mr. Midoriya?"
He shook his head. "No."
"Then I'm afraid-"
"Tell him I have information on the Kamino Ward Incident." Izuku raised a brow at the hurried, unintelligible whispers issuing from the speaker.
The rapid conversation continued for several moments.
"I apologise,sir," the woman returned, "but the principal cannot be bothered by every person on the streets claiming to have important information about Kamin-"
"Give him the letters 'A.F.O.'"
A sigh and more whispers.
Izuku tapped his foot against the concrete and a scowl settled on his face.
"Please wait one moment, sir." Surprise leaked through the woman's tone. "Hound Dog will be with you shortly to escort you."
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Izuku raised his hand to knock on the metal door as Pro Hero: Hound Dog left with a small bow.
"Please, enter," a soft voice called from behind the door.
Looking up, Izuku caught a glare of light off of a microscopic lens and repressed a snort. 'He likely hid that there to keep his students off balance.'
The door's silver knob was cool against his palm as he turned it and opened the large door. Izuku slipped into a dimly lit office and let the door close behind him. It was sparsely decorated, file cabinets and bookshelves lining every inch of available wall space. A lone desk sat in the middle of the large room, behind which sat what was most likely the most interesting creature on Earth.
"My, you're a tall one!" A hybrid animal which largely represented a mouse clapped his paws in excitement. "And interesting too."
Nezu shuffled some papers around on his desk, muttering, "Midoriya…Midoriya. Ah! Here it is." He perused the contents of the manila folder, eying Izuku over it. "One-hundred-sixty-six centimetres and quirkless. It seems our information on you is quite outdated, Mr. Midoriya."
Izuku crossed the threshold and sat in the lone chair in front of Nezu's desk. "Principal Nezu. A bipedal mouse-bear-dog hybrid, the result of a very successful genetic experiment. A cognitive enhancement quirk, High Spec, of which little is known. Suspected in the murder of the doctor responsible for his…creation, but never proven guilty due to a lack of substantiating evidence. I assume my information is not out of date?"
"My, my, you certainly are informed." Nezu's black eyes flashed beneath a quirked brow. "If you wouldn't mind my asking, why did you pull your application to U.A.? It isn't often that a quirkless child applies for the hero course, especially since it is evident you do have some type of quirk. Unless, of course, you grew nearly sixty centimetres in the past year or so?"
Izuku scoffed. "I was unaware I possessed a quirk, Principal Nezu. But, as interesting as your attempts for gaining information are, I am not here for that."
"A quick mind, too," Nezu pouted. "It is so rare to have the opportunity to speak with a human as sharp as you. Perhaps it is best that you tell me why you are here. I was told you have information regarding Kamino?"
The small creature poured two steaming cups of tea, pushing one toward Izuku. He picked it up with a nod of thanks and sniffed the cup before taking a sip. Nezu's eyes flashed again.
"A wonderful brew," Izuku breathed. "Regarding Kamino, I have no solid information that would be overly helpful in your search for Lemillion."
"A guess then?" Nezu shook his head, a frown sliding onto his face. "How disappointing. Then why the charade?"
Setting the cup down with a soft clink, Izuku continued, "An educated guess. You are right to believe some sort of power influenced my…changes, but it is not a quirk. It is something even you would be unable to fully comprehend."
"You mean a form of foresight?" Nezu scratched his chin. "While exceedingly rare, those types of quirks have been documented. Tell me what you saw, Mr. Midoriya."
"Death," he whispered. "The Earth aflame with All For One sitting atop a mountain of corpses as if it were a throne."
Sliding from his chair, Nezu walked over to a file cabinet in the corner of his office. A subtle schick met Izuku's ears and the cabinet opened, containing a lone file. Nezu thumbed through the document.
"While you are very well informed, Mr. Midoriya," Nezu stated, staring at Izuku from over the file, "I am afraid your information is rather…lacklustre. To those who know of All For One, it is well known he wishes to rule Japan at the least. I have always found it likely he wished to expand that reach across the globe. Unless…you are aware of how he will do so?"
"How he will do so is largely irrelevant." Izuku shrugged when Nezu tilted his head. "I can foresee all outcomes spanning from the present. Not a single, feasible future existed where All For One was stopped before he gained his power."
Nezu placed the file back in the cabinet, the white fur of his neck raised. He growled, "And how he came by that power, Mr. Midoriya?"
"I don't know the details," he replied. "But I do know it involves a power passed down from All Might to Lemillion. He finds a way to take it for himself. That monster will form an army of unified villains. With that, and his power, most outcomes see him conquering everything. Almost nothing can stop him."
"And the ones that don't?" Nezu turned, a curious fire burning in his eyes. "What is the critical juncture? Who stops him?"
Izuku took a sip of tea, his mind racing. 'Nearly half of the encounters I saw with Nezu saw me chased from the country. How do I proceed?'
Nezu's claws clacked against the hardwood floor, his thumb hovering over his cell phone's keypad. "I want answers, Mr. Midoriya. You know things you should not. Give me a good reason why I shouldn't have you thrown in Tartarus for hacking encrypted government databases?"
"This is the critical juncture, Principal," Izuku replied with a sigh, mentally calculating his chances. "The power I've gained is in its infancy. I am the only one who can stop All For One, but I need your help."
"Why not turn to the government? Surely, you would do well enough with their resources."
Nezu's query was met with deep-bellied laughter that did little to stop Izuku's twisting stomach.
"You know as well as I what would happen if I were to turn to the government, Principal Nezu." Izuku waved his hand. "They wouldn't help; they'd turn me into a science project at best. I turned to you because you know how to think and operate outside the box. You do not turn away from the seemingly impossible."
Clacking claws rebounded around the room as Nezu returned to his seat. Once sat, the hybrid animal levelled Izuku with a stare. A part of him wanted nothing more than to turn away from those heat-filled eyes, but he stamped the desire down. Izuku stared back as minutes passed in total silence.
"What resources will you need?" Nezu took a sip of his tea. "I assume you've come prepared."
Izuku pulled a folder from his cloak and passed it to the Principal. The scarily intelligent animal thumbed through documents, humming as he read.
"I'll need access to one of your workshops," Izuku replied. "As well as access to Recovery Girl and Momo Yoayorozu in Class 1-A. My body will be unable to receive more power quickly enough to stop All For One without intense modification."
Stopping at one of the pages, Nezu's head whipped up with intensely inquisitive eyes. "And how would a sixteen-year-old high school dropout know about things such as this? Technology like this doesn't exist! How do I know you won't simply die in our facilities?"
Izuku smirked. 'Got him.'
"A scholar never reveals all his secrets, Principal Nezu."