Another day passed in which Katsuki and Izuku said almost nothing to each other. It had started the moment Izuku had arrived home from his conversation with All Might, at Katsuki's discretion. He had said nothing to the other boy beyond a brief initial greeting, with the exception of answering Izuku's questions with short, usually one-word answers. At all times outside of dinner, school, sleep, and studying, Katsuki had made sure to occupy himself as far from Izuku as possible. Almost two weeks had passed in such a way, and Izuku was appearing more and more visibly stressed as the days drew on. Katsuki was well prepared for another night of near total silence as he and Izuku studied in their shared bedroom, until Izuku suddenly spoke up in the middle of their session.

"So… are we ever going to just talk again?" Izuku asked as he laid atop his bed on his stomach, a textbook open before him.

Katsuki didn't even bother to look up from his own reading, his voice tense and full of irritation.

"You tell me. You promised to fill me in as soon as you got home from Nighteye's agency, and then blew me off instead. I'm not the one holding back."

Izuku made a noise not unlike that of a deflating balloon as he quickly averted his eyes to his book and held them glued to the text. He could feel Katsuki's glare boring straight through the side of his face, without even checking to confirm the assumption. It was a distinct sort of pressure, full of hatred and bile. In that moment, he suddenly understood just how Katsuki's opponents felt under his gaze during a serious fight.

"Kacchan, I…" Izuku started, only to make a noise of frustration as he cut himself off. "I… can't tell you what All Might and I talked about."

"Then I see no reason to talk at all," Katsuki resolved as he turned the page of his textbook. "You know, after that night at the park… I was starting to think I could trust you. Turns out, you're just like everyone else."

"That's not…!" Izuku started as he turned his attention to Katsuki, only to find the other boy boredly looking over his study materials. "I… that is not fair! This is a special case! Things changed!"

"Yeah, I guess they did," Katsuki agreed. "I've saved your ass, more than once. I trained you, defended you constantly, answered your stupid questions about Quirks, and studied with you for years, and this is what I get? 'I can't tell you', when you ran off with All Might, who probably thinks I'm some sort of weakling, now?"

"He doesn't think you're weak!" Izuku protested. "He… he was actually going to talk to you that night, originally, but then… it wouldn't have worked, a-and…"

"And then what? Things changed?" Katsuki spat as he finally met Deku's eyes and slammed his book closed. "Don't bullshit me, Deku."

"I'm not!" Deku insisted, his voice rising. "Kacchan, if it was about anything else, I would tell you immediately, but I c-"

"Do you know why I started training you?" Katsuki interrupted as he stood up. "Figured it out, yet? It's because over the years, I've started to pity you. At first, when you would bitch about not having a Quirk, I'd just roll my eyes at how pathetic you sounded. I stuck to that for years. You're weak, Deku… but you're determined. I figured that out over time, and I started to care just enough to throw you a bone because of that. Because I thought that maybe, just maybe, you weren't as weak as you seemed. I guess that was a mistake."

"It wasn't a mistake!" Izuku insisted as he stood up and moved to follow Katsuki. "If you hadn't… it's because of you that All Might… if you hadn't trained me, he wouldn't have…"

"Spit it out!" Katsuki demanded as he reached the door and turned to face Izuku. "Either stop stumbling over your words and tell me what's going on or shut up and let me leave!"

Izuku clenched his fists, his breathing erratic and shoulders tense. The boy swallowed hard as his hands began to tremble. He closed his eyes and let out a pathetic little noise of protest as he tried desperately to come up with some sort of explanation that would stop Katsuki from leaving.

"Kacchan, I… I-I…"

Katsuki waited patiently, barely even breathing as he watched Izuku struggle. The entire bedroom was silent for a long while, and the air seemed to get heavier with every passing second. Finally, Katsuki's upper lip twitched, and he let out a noise of disgust as he grabbed the doorknob and turned.

"…you're nothing to me anymore. I trained you to make you feel like you had something, since you're never getting into U.A., and you'll never amount to shit in a society of heroes. I trained you to give you something other than constant disappointment in your life. I was trying to lift you up as best I could, since I… eventually, I thought that maybe you deserved better. But… fuck this, I'm going home, and you're n-"

"I have a Quirk!"

Just as quickly as Katsuki had started to turn the doorknob, his hand froze in place. He stared dead ahead at the wood of the door, his mind strangely blank.

"…what?"

"I… have a Quirk," Izuku repeated, much more quietly. "I-I've had one for a while now, but I… I wasn't ready to tell you, a-and All Might made me promise not to t-"

"You expect me to believe that?" Katsuki spat as he whirled on Izuku. "You expect me to believe you've been hiding a Quirk, the thing you would never shut up about for years?"

"I-I…" Izuku stammered as he began to back up in an attempt to avoid Katsuki's sudden approach. "I didn't tell you because…"

"Because what, Deku?" Katsuki seethed as the smaller boy backed straight into the wall. Katsuki towered over him, staring down with a barely contained fury. "Because I didn't deserve to know? Because it's bullshit? How long is 'a while now'?"

Izuku's chest started to heave as his breathing became audible and strained.

"It's… I… t-two months? A, uh, a little more than… maybe three…?"

"Really?" Katsuki questioned as he put his hand out just over Izuku's shoulder and pressed his palm into the wall, hard enough to make a noise. Izuku jumped in response, his hairline becoming sweaty under the pressure. Katsuki put on a wide smile, more of challenge than amusement. "And what is this Quirk?"

"Uh… u-uh," Izuku tried as he nervously eyed Katsuki's hand, which had started to emit a gentle stream of wispy smoke. "It's… it's really powerful! I didn't want to show you unt-"

"Then why didn't you use it against the slime villain that almost killed me!?" Katsuki roared, causing Izuku to whimper and turn his head away. "Or are you feeding me bullshit?"

Izuku let out a horrible whimper, like a prey animal that had been cornered by a much larger, fiercely snarling wolf.

"Kacchan, I'm not lying! I really do have a Qu-"

"Shut up!" Katsuki commanded. "You know what, Deku… I do believe you have a Quirk… but you haven't had it for two months. More like two weeks. All Might did something, didn't he? That's why you're acting the way you are. That's wh-"

"Yes!" Izuku admitted. "Yes, alright! Just… don't blow a hole in my wall! I'm not great at lying!"

"Then don't try!" Katsuki instructed as he pulled his hand back. He clenched his own fist, a steady plume of smoke still rising from between his fingers. Without a word, he looked Izuku over with a renewed, judgmental stare. "Show me."

Izuku hesitated, before closing his eyes and offering Katsuki a quick nod.

"…it's too late to back out now. I'll show you under three conditions…"

Katsuki rolled his eyes as he folded his arms across his chest.

"…yeah, whatever. 'Don't tell anyone' is a given, but I'm not that fucking stupid, Izuku. All Might was my idol too. I'm not about to stab him in the back for whatever he did to you."

Izuku paused, looking almost hurt as he cowered under Katsuki's glare.

"…was…?"

"…state your other terms," Katsuki replied, unblinking.

Izuku gave the other boy a quick nod and swallowed his fear.

"If I'm going to show you… it can't be here. We're going to have to sneak out after Mom's asleep and go somewhere… uh… open. It'll be a lot easier if we test it in combat."

Katsuki's furious expression upturned into a confident smirk, and he cracked his neck.

"…oh, this is gonna be good…"

The two boys made their way through the forest side by side, though neither had said a word since their departure from the Midoriya household. Katsuki had kept his eyes on the foliage and the field of stars barely visible through the dense canopy high above, while Izuku kept his own on the grass and leaf litter. After continuing on for nearly half an hour, the boys arrived at a small river cutting through two raised sections of dirt.

"…almost there. Just on the other side of this, and then over a fence…"

Katsuki made no reply, but broke out into a sprint, instead. With a flying leap, he cleared the gap easily and made a clean landing. Izuku drew in a deep breath before eyeing up the distance of about seven feet, and then took a running leap of his own. Despite his grunt of effort, Izuku came up short and ended up scrabbling with his arms along the muddy ledge as his lower body made a loud splash within the frigid water below. He gritted his teeth and hissed at the numbing sensation, all the while frantically working to pull himself up. Katsuki merely watched at first, before turning away and spitting into the grass as he waited.

"…what the hell did All Might do? He just… gave you a Quirk? That's not a thing, Deku."

Izuku paused to catch his breath, hunched over and covered in mud. Eventually, he moved to stand up straight and wiped off his hands upon his basketball shorts.

"He… you're not going to believe me if I tell you. And even if you do, you'll be… uh…"

"…pissed off?" Katsuki finished as he began to walk ahead, through the trees. "I'm already there. At you, and at him."

Izuku jogged forward to walk at Katsuki's side. Suddenly, the thought to merely take off into the woods and leave his friend crossed his mind, but he instead whimpered and continued on.

"I mean, I guess so, but usually when you're mad, you get… you seem kinda… unhinged? Like you're barely keeping it together. And you're really loud."

Katsuki finally looked over at Izuku, which caused the other boy to take a defensive step to the side.

"…all these years, and you haven't figured it out? That's for show, dumbass," Katsuki spat. "Intimidation. It's a way of getting what I want… and it works. I learned that early on. You've never seen me really mad. Not until tonight… and for your information, I am barely holding it together."

The boys arrived at a chain link fence gating off a massive hole in the ground, bordered by unoccupied construction vehicles. The sides of the hole were sloped and led down into a massive quarry, with several boulders and slabs of stone scattered about the bottom. The bright, almost unnaturally large full moon shone brilliant light down into the pit, almost seeming to mark it as their destination through some celestial guidance.

"Kacchan… before we go down there, you should… I think you should know what's going on," Izuku started, only to pause as the other boy turned to face him fully and drew in a tense breath. "I mean, you shouldn't know any of this, and All Might would kill me if he knew I told you… but I… I need you to get through this."

"You what?" Katsuki deadpanned as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"I need you," Izuku repeated as he idly brushed some more mud from his shirt. "I can't do this alone, and you're the only person I feel like I could trust with this. I know you probably don't feel the same way, given some of the things you said back at the house, but… you're my best friend, Kacchan. Even through all of the rough patches, and times like these. I told you about my Quirk to stop you from leaving, and I knew that would mean telling you everything. It's just… hard, right now. Really hard. I wasn't holding out on you because I don't trust you. I was holding out because I had to, but when you threatened to leave, I realized that losing you would be worse than having to tell All Might that I broke his trust. So… here we are…"

Katsuki took another breath before closing his eyes and turning his head to the side. His mouth pulled into a dour frown as he shook his head, and then finally, he looked over to Izuku with an unreadable expression.

"…I'm not about to apologize for anything I said, Deku," Katsuki stated with an edge still in his tone. "Don't make promises you can't keep… especially to people you care about. That's been my entire life up to this point, and if it happens again… no amount of backpedaling will stop me from walking. That's all I'm willing to say."

"That's fair, and I'm not asking you to apologize," Izuku reassured with a disappointed look. "Besides… the fact that you're still here says more than enough."

Izuku watched nervously as Katsuki's eyes narrowed in response.

"…what happened, Deku?" Katsuki seethed, flashing his teeth.

"Right! I… okay. This is going to be hard to explain, and to hear," Izuku warned. "But… All Might's hurt. Really hurt. Like… permanently. He was injured really badly in a fight a few years back, and ever since then, his Quirk's been on a time limit. All Might can barely fight for a few hours a day, now, and after that… you wouldn't even recognize him. He looks like a skeleton…"

Katsuki's expression shifted from one of anger to alarm, his narrowed eyes widening as his voice grew quiet.

"…what…?"

"…yeah," Izuku acknowledged. "He's… he thinks that sometime before the end of this year, he won't be able to fight at all. He has to step down as Japan's number one, and sooner or later, this is all going to end up becoming public. For months now, he's been looking for a successor. For someone to train, and someone to… inherit One for All. One for All isn't like other Quirks, Kacchan. The 'muscle form' he claims is his Quirk? That's only one part of it, and that's the Quirk he was born with. One for All can be passed down, person after person, and it carries the Quirks of the people who inherit it. He chose me to be the next user."

Katsuki simply stared at Izuku for a long while, his mind racing.

"…if I wasn't so sure that you're too scared of me to lie to my face, I'd call you out on it and blow your ass apart right now."

"…I know," Izuku agreed. "And before you ask why he chose me, of all people… it's because I didn't have a Quirk. There's something called the Quirk Singularity Theory, which st-"

"I don't care," Katsuki interrupted. "Not right now, anyway. What matters right now is that All Might's essentially dead, and you claim that you have his power."

"All Might isn't dead!" Izuku insisted. "He can still… even after passing One for All on to me, he can still fight! At least… for now, he can. He's just limited to his own Quirk and the… he called them 'embers' of the other Quirks still inside of him, that will last a little while. But you're right, I guess. I have the whole set… and it's… it's terrifying."

Katsuki fell silent again as he looked over Izuku once again, as though he was seeing the other boy for the first time.

"…so you're telling me we're about to go down into the quarry, and you'll suddenly be seven feet tall and full of rippling muscle?"

Izuku let out a small laugh despite the situation, and brought up a hand to scratch awkwardly through his hair.

"N-no! I… actually haven't figured out how to make his original Quirk work, just yet. I can use a few of the others ones, though…"

"Multiple Quirks," Katsuki said as he shook his head and began to climb over the fence. "Such bullshit. I guess it's fitting. You really have no idea how good you have it, do you?"

"…Kacchan?" Izuku asked as he began to climb the fence himself.

"…shut up, Deku. Just meet me down there, and prepare to get your ass beat. I don't care how many Quirks you have."

Izuku quite nearly fell off the fence as Katsuki suddenly fired off a series of explosions from both palms and began to speed down into the pit.

"Kacchan!"

Katsuki didn't even bother to look back, and instead hurtled down to the bottom of the quarry, scattering blasted rock this way and that as he propelled himself down just above the ground. In mere seconds, he had arrived among the fallen boulders and derelict vehicles before turning around to watch Izuku's descent. The smaller boy slipped and scrabbled his way down the rocky slope, pebbles and stones rolling down along with him as he fought to keep his balance. Finally, he reached flat ground and windmilled his arms to stay standing, looking aghast.

"Kacchan! What if someone heard you!?"

"Tch. We're fighting down here, aren't we?" Katsuki asked as he cracked his knuckles. "Besides- this quarry was abandoned years ago. No one's around."

"I guess," Izuku admitted as he began to stretch. "Just… be careful."

"Whatever. Now, enough stalling. Are you gonna show me your Quirks, or not?"

Izuku sighed in resignation before closing his eyes and clenching his fists. As though on cue, crackles of green electricity began to course all around his body, and his hair seemed to be buffeted about by an unseen wind.

"…so you're not bullshitting after all," Katsuki observed as he settled into a stance and became incredibly serious. "Though, before we do this, there is one thing I gotta ask- keeping the secret and getting away from your house were two conditions. You never did say what the third was."

Izuku opened his eyes, looking unnaturally calm as they began to glow an unnatural, almost neon green.

"…the last condition is that you don't hold back."

Katsuki flashed a predatory grin as a few small explosions popped within his hands in warning.

"…you have no idea what you're asking. You'll get killed if I don't hold back, Deku."

"No, Kacchan. I'm asking you not to hold back for your safety," Izuku warned. "Because I haven't figured out how to hold any of this back, yet…"

Katsuki watched in confused as a black tendril snaked from beneath Izuku's sleeve and wrapped itself down and around his right wrist. At nearly the same time, a nearby boulder lifted into the air just behind the boy, and the green arcs of energy around his legs intensified and became more erratic. The fingers upon Izuku's left hand elongated before twisting around each other and hardening into a single curved, deadly looking blade while his breathing became labored and unnaturally quick. For a moment, Katsuki's smile faltered as he watched the display, only for the grin to come right back and intensify as he launched himself forward with another pair of backward explosions.

"Then die!"

Author's Note:

Next week's chapter will probably be uneventful, or something. No big deal.

-RD