Chapter 23

.::Nostalgia and New Alliances::.

Today, Izuku was determined to finally, finally put his plan into action. This time he wouldn't let anything deter him. Almost all of the villains were out today, whether to perform crimes or some other tasks they wouldn't share with him. Even Kurogiri and Shigaraki had left for whatever reason, and as far as Izuku knew the only ones hanging around besides the basic grunts were Magne and—most importantly—Seiko.

Closing the door to his room after returning from lunch, he took a breath and called out hesitantly. "Seiko?"

"Yes?" He jumped and whirled around with a startled shout to find her standing behind him, that same eerie blank look on her face as always. At this point he probably shouldn't be surprised by her ability to appear literally out of no where, but he was still caught off-guard by how fast she responded.

"A-are you always watching me!?" he asked, clutching at his chest.

"I am," she responded simply, and he almost faltered at how bluntly she answered him. Seriously!? That really did not ease his nerves.

Talking to Seiko always left Izuku feeling unsettled. Beyond the whole appearing out of no where thing, she also just carried this bizarre aura that left his nerves on edge. Maybe it was the fact she almost never showed emotion, save for a rare quirk of her lips. Or maybe it was her eyes. They just had this—emptiness to them, almost as if something was missing, but he had no idea what.

Something about Seiko just felt... wrong.

Still, despite all that, she was probably the person Izuku trusted the most right now. It was bizarre to think that because he knew even less about her than all of the other villains. However, so far she had only been helpful—even if it was in her own, creepy way—hence why he felt she was the only one he could approach about this.

So he pushed against his misgivings, silently steeling himself before speaking. "Everyone should be gone for the next few hours, right?" he asked, and Seiko inclined her head.

"Yes. I would advise against leaving without Kurogiri teleporting you though. It's dangerous to leave the building directly."

"That's fine, I don't want to go anywhere," Izuku replied, and took a deep breath. "Can you help me with something?" She inclined her head slightly, a silent indication for him to elaborate, so he pushed on. "You know about how I've been trying to fix things with Kacchan, right? A-and, also, how I've been spending a lot of time with Hijack...?"

He trailed off, but Seiko gave no sign of affirmation, merely continued to gaze at him with that unreadable blank look. Gulping, he decided to just get to the point. "Can—can you help me get them together? In one place? I need to talk to them, together."

Seiko finally blinked for the first time this entire conversation, her head returning to its normal upright position. "I see. And you are asking me to help, rather than Shigaraki or Kurogiri, because you do not wish them to know?"

"Pretty much," Izuku confirmed. "They'd probably want to supervise it, and I don't think Kacchan or Hijack would feel comfortable." That was an understatement. Izuku wouldn't feel comfortable with a deadly villain hovering in the corner even if he didn't have a plan and just wanted to genuinely hang out. Shigaraki would probably join the conversation and/or spend the entire time muttering ominous threats, while Kurogiri would probably just hover there watching them silently. He didn't know which would be worse.

As it stood, having either of them there to supervise would get in the way of his plan anyway, so he didn't dwell on it. "I just want to be able to talk to them both at once. Alone, if possible," he added. "It... might make things easier."

Seiko said nothing for a long moment, those eerie luminescent black and white eyes seeming to penetrate into his very soul. He suppressed a shiver, just meeting them as squarely as he could. Finally though she walked past him, opening the door and stepping into the hall. Izuku turned to watch her in surprise for a few moments, unsure what to do until she spoke up. "We should go now."

Izuku startled at that, but quickly perked up and hurried after her as relief washed over him. She agreed. He hadn't been entirely sure she'd be willing to help, so the fact she agreed so easily made the tension seep from his body. He'd worried she might have wanted more information first, he didn't want her to try to stop him or tell someone else. By the time she figured out what he intended, it would (hopefully) be too late to stop it.

They moved through the halls in silence, Seiko leading the way as she always did. It didn't take him long to realize where they were going, stepping a little closer to her with a small frown. "Are we going to Hijack's room?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"We are," Seiko confirmed. "He's quieter and will be easier to move." Izuku winced at her words, thinking of why Shinsou was so quiet.

"But—that thing around his ankle," he pressed anxiously after a few seconds. "Isn't it, like, to keep him in that room?" He hadn't paid much attention to the bracelet around Shinsou's ankle, more distracted by the muzzle custom fit to his jaw, but the blinking red light on the band gave him a bad feeling.

"It restricts his movements to the building, not just that room," Seiko responded. "It won't detonate if he leaves." Izuku stopped short at that, his jaw dropping open in absolute horror as the blood drained from his face.

"It's a BOMB?" he squeaked.

"Technically yes," Seiko responded way too casually for such a serious and horrifying topic. "I doubt he is aware though. Its main usage is the electrocution function." Izuku just gaped at her retreating back, his horror only growing. Seiko never broke her stride, and after several long seconds he gulped and jogged after her.

There were so many things wrong with this situation, and somehow it got even worse. Forget trying to get home, this plan NEEDED to work for their sakes.

When they reached Shinsou's room Seiko stepped aside, allowing Izuku to enter the code and open the door. He found the other teen reclined on the bed playing Mario Kart, reflexively hitting the pause button as he turned to look at Izuku. He felt awkward under Shinsou's silent stare, shuffling anxiously in the doorway.

"Hey," he greeted awkwardly. "Um, I know this is sudden, but you know how I've been talking about my friend Kacchan being here too?" Izuku had made sure to tell both teens about each other, partially to explain why he had to split his time but also for the sake of the plan. Shinsou arched an eyebrow and nodded, as if to say 'go on,' so Izuku took a deep breath. "Well, um, everyone's gone right now so I want to take you to meet him. C-can you grab your whiteboard?"

Shinsou raised both eyebrows now, clearly surprised, but after several long seconds he put down the controller and grabbed his whiteboard and marker. Izuku stepped aside as Shinsou walked over so he could walk out first, the other teen pausing briefly to stare at the ground before stepping through the door almost cautiously.

Seiko stood outside waiting for them, and as soon as Izuku closed the door she turned and started walking. Shinsou seemed taken aback by her presence, shooting Izuku a heavily questioning look clearly asking, "What the actual hell is going on? Who is that? Is that a kid?" He could only reply with a shrug and helpless smile, which quickly turned into a grimace as they started following Seiko.

They walked down the hallway in silence, the air almost tense. Seiko seemed to be immune to the tension as always, or maybe she caused it. Either way it set his nerves on edge, and he couldn't help but worry about someone appearing around every corner. Judging by the way Shinsou glanced around he might be paranoid too... or he might just be looking around because he'd never been out of that room.

When was the last time he even saw the sky? Izuku wondered, and then had to dismiss the thought because it was just too depressing. He focused on following Seiko to Bakugou's room, where she once more stepped aside so he could enter. He stood in front of the door and took a deep breath, steeling himself before he knocked and pushed it open.

No going back now.

Bakugou Katsuki was meant to be a hero.

That's what people had told him from practically the day he was born. The moment his Quirk manifested everyone swarmed around him, eyes alight with awe and admiration as they showered him with praise. "Explosions are so powerful!" "You'll be an unbeatable hero!" "With a Quirk like that you'll be Number One for sure!"

He'd preened under the attention, absorbed every word and reflected them with pride. Everyone else around him became nothing but extras, the world elevating Katsuki straight into the spotlight as the main character. Looking back he'd say that could have been his folly. He'd been too proud.

Reality had hit him hard and early with the death of All Might.

Even before the rest of the world began to go to shit, even before Pro Heroes began dropping like flies and missing posters plastered every wall, Katsuki's world shattered at the age of eight. He'd never forget sitting with Deku in absolute silence, watching the smoking remains of a city where the Number One Hero had engaged in battle with some villain called All For One. The name had sounded so stupid, he'd thought, but looking at the absolute carnage left by their fight had rendered him mute.

That day, Katsuki learned that a powerful Quirk wasn't everything. Sometimes, it was even bad. That lethal battle between All Might and All For One wouldn't have been nearly as devastating if they hadn't both been so ridiculously powerful. Tokyo would still be standing if Endeavor's opponent hadn't been the walking equivalent of a nuclear bomb, radiating corrosive mist that melted everything and everyone it came into contact with.

Katsuki looked at the endless news footage of Tokyo's devastation days after that fight ended, watching as yet another building collapsed behind a reporter and kicked up a giant dust cloud without any external provocation. And he thought of his own Quirk, which could be so destructive if he wasn't careful.

Even before Tokyo fell though, and after All Might died, there had been one more event that hammered in how Quirks weren't everything.

The day Auntie Inko and Uncle Hisashi died in a plane crash.

During the funeral he'd felt numb, just staring at their empty caskets as Deku silently cried while holding the old hag's hand. Even then it didn't feel real that they were gone, but most of all to something like that.

Plane crashes couldn't be stopped by explosions. There were no villains to beat, no room for a fantasy where he would show up and stop it before it crashed and save the day. Even if he'd already been the Number One Hero, he wouldn't have been able to do anything to help them until it already was too late. No amount of training would make his Quirk magically able to prevent the plane from crashing.

For the first time in his life, Bakugou Katsuki realized being a hero meant more than just winning, and that his Quirk wouldn't always be enough to save the day.

That revelation had hung over him for weeks afterwards, leaving him just as quiet and somber as the perpetually-crying Deku. The two boys had spent countless hours huddled up in Katsuki's room, neither of them speaking and just leaning against each other as each ruminated in their own thoughts. At school kids left them both alone, the relentless teasing towards Deku from their peers ending.

When a month passed and the first kid finally tried to tease Deku again, he'd stopped short when Katsuki glared at him. The next kid got a much more physical lesson on why no one should pick on him anymore. After all, what point was there in mocking someone for being Quirkless when there were situations where their Quirks wouldn't matter? Most Quirks wouldn't have been able to save Auntie or Uncle.

In some scenarios, they'd all be as good as Quirkless.

Katsuki's biggest regret in life was that he never figured out how to vocalize any of that to Deku. Even as Katsuki finally began to come to terms with all these new revelations and regained his usual hot-headed demeanor, he didn't talk about it to Deku. He was only eight, he had no idea how to even begin to talk about sappy emotional stuff like that. And Deku was still sad, he'd lost his parents for crying out loud! It wasn't the time to have some sappy heart-to-heart conversation about his newfound understanding of what it meant to be a hero or whatever.

Maybe if he had, Deku would still be there.

The day that Deku ran away had been cold and rainy. The hag and his dad had gone crazy when they realized what the idiot had done, calling up all the neighbors and parents to start a search party. Katsuki remembered his parents shoving him with Old Mrs. Hanamura down the street before rushing out the door, never looking so absolutely frantic in their lives.

Katsuki spent almost every day with Mrs. Hanamura for the next two weeks while his parents searched and searched. Deku had taken almost all the pictures they had of him and Auntie and Uncle, and the next day his family's house caught fire, only adding to the panic and fear. At first a lot of people helped look, but as time went on less and less people helped. Finally one night his mom came home with her eyes rimmed red, cursing the police at the top of her lungs between shaky sobs as his dad hugged her tight, and he realized Deku would probably never come back.

For years, the last memory Katsuki would have of Midoriya Izuku would be of a sad eight-year-old boy sitting on the edge of his bed, staring down at the photo of his eighth birthday with hollow green eyes.

Katsuki would never imagine that eight years later upon finally reuniting with his childhood best friend, he would try to bash in his face.

To be fair, he also never imagined that reunion would take place after being kidnapped by villains and having his hands stuck in metal handcuffs, so he figured he was absolutely justified in being pissed off. Deku apparently agreed, seeing as he stopped the villains' fucking leader from trying to disintegrate his face. Figures that even after spending eight years living with villains, stupid Deku would still be a crybaby pushover.

He never got a solid explanation for how Deku ended up there. The bastard always avoided the question until Katsuki finally gave up asking. Deku obviously knew this whole thing was fucked up, judging by how he was always fidgeting and avoiding his eyes, but he still never tried to fix anything. Which was bullshit, because if he could get away with calling Shigaraki "Tomura-nii" then he had carte blanche of this place!

However, even with all that, this took the cake.

The visit started normal enough. He'd been sitting on the bed bored out of his mind like usual when he heard the familiar knock followed by it opening, and turned to see Deku scramble in like always. Any normality flew out the window the second a second person followed him inside, making him bolt upright as his guard instantly flew up. Deku had never brought another visitor before.

"What the hell, Deku?" he asked, straight to the point as always. "Is that—what the actual fuck?" His questions abruptly died as his eyes zeroed in on the muzzle wrapped around the other guy's face, just stunned. The new teen cringed and backed up a bit under his stare, obviously self-conscious and uncomfortable.

"Uh, I'll explain in a second," Deku mumbled, closing the door almost hesitantly. As he did he peeked into the hallway one last time, as if checking something. By that point the mysterious stranger had already taken the opportunity to write on his whiteboard and turned it to Katsuki.

'Hello Kacchan.' Katsuki could feel his eye twitch at the written nickname.

"Are you Hijack?" he guessed irritably. Deku had mentioned the vigilante and that he'd been muzzled, but he hadn't thought—fuck, he thought he'd just been gagged or something! When the mystery fucker nodded he turned to Deku to growl, "Did you even bother to tell the fucker my actual name?"

"It... might have slipped my mind?" Deku said sheepishly after a few seconds. Both of them gave him rather unimpressed looks, making him cringe.

"My name's Bakugou Katsuki, not 'Kacchan,'" Katsuki told Hijack. "I only let Deku get away with that because I don't have a choice."

'Respect,' Hijack wrote with a sage nod while Deku winced next to him.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled miserably, which he fucking should be, but then shook his head and seemed to get ahold of himself. "Look, Hijack, can you sit down? I'll apologize more later but right now I don't know how long we have so we should get started." Hijack shot him a curious look as he went to sit on the bed, making sure to give Katsuki space, while Katsuki's eyes narrowed.

"What're you up to now, Deku?" he asked lowly. "This isn't just some shitty meet-and-greet, is it? Are you even allowed to do this?"

"Probably not," Deku admitted, reaching into his pocket. "But I've been thinking of how to do this for a while, and it's easier to tell you both at once. And even then, there's just—so much, I don't even know where to begin. Everything's so screwed up and I have no idea where to even begin with fixing it. But after thinking about it I thought of this, and, well, it's probably a better starting point than anything I can come up with."

He pulled out an envelope and thrust it at Hijack, the purple-haired teenager taking it with an almost suspicious look while Bakugou leaned over his shoulder to read the writing. Izuku - Read In Case of Emergency. Shooting Deku one last wary look, Hijack opened it and pulled out a letter.

The next five minutes proved to be awkward as fuck, because with his hands restrained in those blocky metal restraints Katsuki couldn't actually hold the paper. He ended up needing to leave it to the Purple Vigilante Wonder to angle and turn the pages for him to read, which only reminded him of how screwed he was. His irritation didn't make him too receptive to the letter's contents, either. The whole time Deku stood in silence, which didn't fucking help his mood.

"So you just get fucking random laser-guided amnesia with no warning!?" he demanded once he and Hijack finally finished reading the letter.

Deku winced, just bobbing his head. "I-I know it sounds crazy, but it's true!" he babbled. "Two weeks ago I woke up and I knew nothing in that letter! I didn't know about mom and dad, All Might, the Villain Alliance—none of it!" Katsuki scoffed, only half-buying it, but the Purple Fucker seemed to be considering something as he picked up his whiteboard.

'Is that why you suddenly stopped visiting?' he wrote, and Katsuki looked at him quizzically while Deku winced, his head hanging even lower.

"Yeah, it is," he admitted miserably. "I completely forgot about everything, including you two. The letter mentioned you but the last thing on the list at the end was about Kacchan getting stuck here, and when I read that I panicked and couldn't think of anything else. After that I became focused on figuring out what's going on and just making sure no one realized I'm having an episode."

"Why the hell would that matter?" Katsuki snapped. He then flinched when Deku raised his head sharply, his eyes filled with tears but looking strangely determined.

"Because if they got too worried, I wouldn't be able to do anything to help you two!" The outburst silenced him, both his and Hijack's eyes widening as Deku began rambling—no, not rambling, ranting. "Everything about this world's so screwed up and I have no idea how to even begin fixing it! I can't just talk to Shigaraki and ask him to stop, I can't get Toga to leave Hijack alone, I don't even know how to get off that damn muzzle, or why Seiko is here, or what Aiko does but it's got to be screwed up if she's working with the Alliance and I still don't know why she has Aizawa-sensei's goggles—There's just too much!"

Tears streamed freely down Deku's face as he pulled at his hair, but this time they were tears of frustration, his voice rising to an angry pitch. "Everything's just—it's all so screwed up and I feel like I can't do anything! I feel like a stupid, useless Deku and I hate it, guys! I hate it so much! So, please!" He let out an almost desperate whine, turning pleading, begging eyes to them. "Please, you have to work with me so I can save you! I can't just stand by and do nothing, but I can't do anything on my own!"

With those words Deku finally fell silent, his breathing harsh and labored after all the energy put into the rant. Katsuki felt frozen as he stared at him, his brain still struggling to fully process the entire anxiety-driven rant.

Just. Holy shit. He'd seen Deku get worked up before, but never like that. For all he hated his situation and despised Deku for his role in it, Katsuki knew that whole speech wasn't acting or some shitty ploy for sympathy. Deku already looked ready to burst into tears again, his face all scrunched up with desperation and frustration as he tried to control his breathing.

Not for the first time, Katsuki reflected on how Deku hated this just as much as he did. It was obvious enough whenever they interacted, the other teen always flinching and looking guilty as hell, but he'd never actually said it until now. After this long Katsuki had expected him to never actually address it.

More than that though, Deku's words struck a chord in him. "I can't just stand by and do nothing, but I can't do anything on my own!" That sentence took him back to that miserable gloomy day when they were eight years old staring at Auntie and Uncle's caskets, the first day he understood just how powerless he really was. On his own, Katsuki wouldn't have been able to do anything to save them.

And on his own, neither could Deku.

That realization settled something inside him, his hands curling into fists inside the stupid metal block. "Then what do we do?" he demanded, seeming to startle Deku. Katsuki met his wide eyes squarely, pushing on gruffly, "You got us together to tell us all this, so you've got some kind of plan, right?"

Deku blinked, still a bit startled. "You—you're willing to work with me?" he asked, and Katsuki scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"No shit, sherlock! No way any of us are getting out of this shithole on our own. So if you've got a plan, just hit us with it already." Deku just gaped at him, and when he glanced over at the Eyebag Wonder, Hijack nodded in silent agreement, holding up the whiteboard.

'I'm in too. Anything to get this thing off my face.'

Relief visibly washed over Deku's face at seeing them both agree, but he didn't smile or burst into tears like Katsuki expected. Instead he seemed to reaffirm his resolve, his face hardening and eyes lighting with determination.

For the first time since waking up in this shithole, Katsuki decided he might have hope.

And Izuku finally gets them on his side! I've been waiting for this moment for a while. I am so happy with this chapter for so many reasons, I got to expose Shinsou to Seiko's creepiness and work in a bit of world-building.

A little glimpse at my writing process: This chapter was originally two parts. The first part was tacked onto the end of Chapter 22, and covered everything in Izuku's POV and ended with him giving them the letter. The next chapter then went straight into flashbacks for both Bakugou AND Shinsou, starting with Shinsou and ending with Bakugou. I decided to cut Shinsou's POV for now, since his history's a bit more... eventful. On that note, Chapter 22 originally had the 1-A Vigilantes scene and then went to Izuku's POV. The scene at Nighteye was originally in the next chapter, but I rearranged the order. I'm glad I did, because the 1-A Vigilantes probably would've been overshadowed by this chapter.

And THIS is why I advocate writing ahead before posting chapters. You never want to write yourself into a corner, or change your mind about an event after posting it.

Question for next time: what do you think is Izuku's plan? And how much do you think Seiko knows?