The moment Izuku stepped into the ballroom, everything seemed to grind to a halt.
It was merely an illusion, he knew that; the music was still playing, the dancers were still twirling. But when the herald stepped away and he was alone before the cutting, accusatory eyes of Japan's aristocracy, for a moment he felt frozen.
But the moment passed, and Izuku was not the same scared boy he had been, all those years ago. He took a deep breath, and let his fear pass through him. When it was gone, he found himself calm and collected.
As attention shifted-slowly-away from him, he began to move. Though he wouldn't exactly consider himself an expert in etiquette, he knew the basics of the elaborate dance of protocol, and Toshinori had drilled the specifics of this particular event into him in the week since his return.
To start, he went searching for the couple themselves, to pay his respects. The last thing he wanted to do was start a feud or something before he'd even been back in Japan a month.
Luckily, they weren't hard to find. Lord Ejiro and Lady Mina were the center of attention, fielding well-wishers. Those fell silent as he approached, expressions fading until they bore an odd mix of alarm, curiosity, and suspicion.
None of those were present on Lord Ejiro's face as he stepped forwards, however. He was beaming, a wide, shark-toothed grin on his face as Izuku stepped forwards.
Izuku forced his features into a perfect mask, every inch the dutiful lord as he uttered the lines Toshinori had made him rehearse half to death. "Lord Ejiro," he said evenly, extending a hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you. My father sends his greetings-and his congratulations."
Lord Ejiro grinned as he shook Izuku's hand. His grip was firmer than Izuku had expected; looking closer, he noticed that the man seemed well-built and muscular beneath his formal clothing. Izuku's well-honed skill for assessing men at a glance told him surprisingly favorable things about Lord Ejiro's apparent strength.
That was beside the point, though; as they shook, Lord Ejiro laughed, "It's good to meet you too, Lord…Izuku, was it? To think, we'd finally get to meet the old man's heir!"
Izuku grinned, and turned to the other half of the couple. He found Lady Mina smiling, as well-but where her betrothed's grin was guileless and bright, hers was closer to an unreadable smirk, her golden eyes glittering mysteriously.
"Indeed," she agreed as she held out her hand for Izuku to kiss, something he did with smoothness born mostly of not wanting to fuck up. "I'll admit, you made quite the entrance there, Lord Izuku."
Izuku smiled as he drew himself back up to his full height. With an ease he didn't feel, he replied, "What can I say? It's important to make a good first impression."
Lady Mina snorted, but didn't say anything else. Izuku soon left the two behind with a polite farewell, letting them go back to their previous conversation. With that out of the way, he had to figure out what to do next. He spotted a waiter carrying a platter of wineglasses through the knots of talking nobles, and thought, "Eh, why the hell not?"
Flagging the man down, Izuku picked one of the glasses up for himself, and tasted it. It was…surprisingly good, if a little rich for his tastes. Some corner of his mind, though, still finding the whole damn situation hilarious, compared it to the "house specials" at Mercy's Bar, and found it just a little wanting.
He'd intended to get up his courage before finding another chance to make some introductions, but it wasn't long before someone else found him. Someone very, very dangerous.
Looking up, Izuku realized something worrying; the conversation around him had died. Fast. Suddenly, he realized why.
Like a sea being parted, a passage opened up between the crowds, revealing a woman striding confidently through the gap-straight towards him.
Izuku's jaw tightened as he recognized her. Then again, it wasn't like that was some great feat-the long two-tone hair running down her back in an elaborate braid made that abundantly clear, along with the red burn scar over her eye.
Shoko Todoroki. The most dangerous woman in Japan. The one person Izuku had been specifically instructed to avoid tonight.
Shit.
He couldn't get his eyes off her as she approached, an inscrutable little smile on her gorgeous face. She was breathtakingly beautiful, tall for a woman and slim, but with mouth-watering curves all the same, her figure flattered by the shimmering blue dress she wore. And the scar-he'd half-expected her to hide it, to cover it up with a mask or makeup or something. Instead, she seemed to jut her chin forwards as she walked, as if thrusting it into view, making it impossible to mistake, forcing everyone who looked at her to see what she was.
In short, it took all of two seconds for every danger sense in Izuku's body-honed by years as a mercenary-to start blaring at him. He realized, then, that he had been wrong. He wasn't prepared for Shoko Todoroki. He never could have been.
Izuku forced himself to breathe as she stepped up to them, setting down his wineglass and keeping his hands behind his back, seeming to all the world like he was perfectly calm.
Lady Shoko finally came to a stop in front of him; she didn't say a word, and made no move to greet him, instead making a deliberate show of looking him up and down. All around them, people watched nervously, clearly worried about what might happen.
Izuku showed nothing on his face, no emotion, and especially not fear. Negotiating with unscrupulous oligarchs, warlords, and paramilitaries had helped him develop one hell of a poker face; he was every bit as unreadable as any noble here when he wanted to be. He simply held Shoko's gaze in return, waiting for her to make the first move, every fiber of his being tensed and ready for shit to go sideways.
At long last, she spoke. In a silvery, musical voice, she said, "So, you're the heir to House Yagi, are you?"
Izuku raised an eyebrow. "So they tell me," he replied after a moment, his voice a low, contrasting rumble.
Shoko snorted. In that same icy tone, she said, "That's not a very… lordly answer. Tell me, where did Lord Yagi find you, anyway? An orphanage, or something?"
Her brusque, nearly rude tone sent murmurs through the watching nobility; that was dangerously close to an explicit insult, by the standards of these people. Izuku, for his part, felt his mind slow down, nearly to a stop. In those fractions of a second, Izuku considered his options. He could see Shoko's eyes glittering expectantly. That was why she'd done it, he realized; she was provoking him. Testing him, to see how he'd react.
How was he going to react? The polite thing to do would be…well, he had no clue what the polite answer to something like that was. And even if he had known…
Izuku had acquired quite a few things in America. Money was one of those, more scars than he cared to count another. But worst of all, he'd picked up one hell of a mouth. And that part of him was, unfortunately, the part that tended to come out when he found himself put on the spot.
Wordlessly, Izuku reached for his wineglass again, and took a deep, satisfying drink. When he set it back down, he smiled, ever so slightly, as Shoko's insult appeared to all the world to roll off his back like water.
"Lady Todoroki, I presume," he said warmly. "A pleasure to meet you. It's lovely to see that all those rumors of your acid tongue were exaggerated."
That sent another wave of disturbed mutterings around their audience. Izuku listened to them with no small amount of relish, while waiting for Shoko herself to react.
When she did, it was not how he expected. He'd expected irritation, or disdain, or any of the other reactions he recalled from nobles who learned of his commoner background.
But that was not what she did. Shoko Todoroki smiled at him.
The moment she did, Izuku felt his heart do a funny twist in his chest, because oh, that was a dangerous smile. It was coy and simpering, one corner of her mouth turned upwards as she tilted her head, loose strands of red hair sweeping across her pale, unblemished neck, eyes glittering like deadly ice.
Izuku was not used to being looked at the way Shoko looked at him; by the end of his time as Titan, he'd almost forgotten what it was like to not be regarded with fear by everyone he knew-sometimes, even Ochako and Katsuki had seemed wary of him, of the man he'd become after it all. But Shoko-Shoko looked at him like he was meat, or the way a mad scientist might regard a fascinating new subject they were about to dissect. She tried to hide it, tried to mask the light in her eyes behind polite indifference, but Izuku could see it. She was intrigued, fascinated; she wanted to pick him apart, see what made him tick.
And… fuck, he kind of liked it.
"So," she said, "You do know who I am."
With effort, Izuku kept that same easygoing, affable smile on his face. "You are quite infamous, after all. Lady Shoko Todoroki, the Ice Queen. The most powerful noblewoman in Japan."
Shoko's smile widened. "The daughter of the second most powerful man in Japan," she corrected. "Oh, and your adoptive father's arch rival, of course."
Izuku raised an eyebrow at that, wondering if it explained the insults, and the dangerous-though not quite hostile- look in her eye. "Ah," he said. "So I suppose we're enemies, then?"
Shoko laughed at that, scarcely more than a giggle-and how even that giggle could be both perfectly ladylike and so thoroughly menacing it made the hair on the back of Izuku's neck stand on end, he didn't want to know-and replied easily, "Actually, I was wondering if you'd like a dance. Is that something an enemy would do?"
There was something worryingly easy about how quickly Izuku responded, how natural it felt to flow with the conversation as he dryly replied, "If I was your enemy, then yes. I'm not a particularly good dancer."
Shoko grinned again. "Well, then just do what I say," she suggested, holding out her hand at last. "You'll find that makes things go pretty easily."
Izuku considered the offer for a moment. Doing what Shoko Todoroki told him to do sounded like a really stupid idea. But then again…his alternative option was trying to go through some of the women in that fucking binder, which he wanted to do about as much as he wanted to be castrated. The decision was shockingly-perhaps even worryingly- easy. He took Shoko's hand, and pressed a kiss to the back of her knuckles. "Somehow, I doubt that," he said as he lifted his head back up. "But I accept."
Shoko's mind was whirling as she and Lord Izuku joined the dance floor.
She went over their conversation-such that it was-again and again, trying to figure out what about it had her so intrigued with him. Even as he put his hand on her waist and they began a slow, deliberate waltz, she was analyzing every word, every gesture, every expression.
She was still doing it as they danced; she noted that, despite his claim of being a poor dancer, he was actually quite skilled. He seemed to not have an abundance of formal education, but he was light on his feet and exceptionally well-balanced, able to move far more skillfully and deftly than a man of his size should have been able to. Shoko recognized this for what it was; a combat skill that translated shockingly well to the rhythmic movement of dance.
He was full of little contradictions like that; his facial scars and physical bulk suggested a crude, rough lifestyle, full of violence and brutality, but his eyes were boyish, his gnarled fingers were shockingly soft as they gripped her waist, and his freckled cheeks could only be called cute. His voice was low and deep when he wanted it to be, but he spoke well, and he was surprisingly witty.
Izuku Midoriya, it seemed, was even more of an enigma than Shoko had thought he was. And that was exciting.
As they danced together, swaying with the music, Shoko was eternally aware of the eyes of their fellow dancers, watching their every move carefully; she knew why they were watching. They were waiting to see just how long Izuku Midoriya lasted now that he was in her clutches. Honestly, she was quite eager to see the same thing.
Focusing back on the man himself, she considered her next move. Provoking him had proved inconclusive; he either hadn't noticed her insult-unlikely, it was brazen by her standards-or, more intriguingly, he simply didn't care.
That was why Shoko found Izuku Midoriya so fascinating. Her interest had been merely boredom at first; it was something much more, now.
Perhaps it was her pride talking, but it had been a long time since a man had shrugged off one of her barbs like that; Shoko had honed them into an art form, a perfect weapon to keep men she disliked at arm's length. But Izuku Midoriya was different. She just didn't know how, yet.
As they danced, Shoko leaned in close, until she detected the slightest hitch in Izuku's breath. Softly, she said, "So, Lord Izuku. How are you finding Japan?"
Lord Izuku's expression was wry as he studied her face, perhaps searching for why she'd asked that question. When he found nothing, he simply chuckled.
"I'm sure there's something about this place I missed," he replied dryly. "I've yet to remember what it was, I'm afraid."
Shoko grinned. She liked the gall on this one.
"Oh, really?" she asked. "Is Japan really that unpleasant?"
Lord Izuku shrugged. "Oh, not at all," he said mildly. "I just have an unfortunate tendency to assume the worst. Call it force of habit."
Shoko considered that as they danced. There was a great deal of potential information here; she would have to think this over later, when she could analyze every word more closely. For now, another question piqued her interest.
"So," she asked after allowing the conversation to lapse for long enough, "what exactly did you do, in America?"
Lord Izuku grinned, but it was guarded, closed-off in a way that was unmistakable, but also unreadable, like an obvious but effective castle gate. So, he did know how to play the game, after all.
"Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that," he said casually. "Really, I'm sure you'd find it boring."
Shoko raised an eyebrow. "Somehow, I doubt that," she purred. "You strike me as the sort of man who only gets mixed up in the most interesting pursuits."
She leaned close as she spoke, eyes tracing the line of his msucular shoulder with slow, playful intent. She could see tension run up the lines of his neck as she fluttered her eyelashes, her hooded gaze meeting his own.
"Good," she thought. "Now he's off balance."
Lord Izuku recovered admirably. As the song swelled to a crescendo, he chuckled, a low, deep rumble in his chest.
"I suppose," he admitted. "I've been known to have an exciting time of it occasionally."
Shoko grinned. "Now we're getting somewhere," she said. "So, what is it that you did? You were a mercenary, right?"
Something shifted, cautious and wary, in Lord Izuku's eyes. There were layers to that look, and Shoko realized that she couldn't read all of them.
That should have been impossible. Shoko hadn't found someone this inscrutable in years. She knew every tic, every motive, every tell for everyone she'd ever met. But that look in Lord Izuku's eyes…it was heavy, like a locked door on a fortress.
"That much isn't a secret, it seems," he replied slowly. "But, given your reputation, perhaps you can understand why I would prefer to keep my secrets…well, secret."
Shoko chuckled. "My reputation, eh?" she asked sweetly. "And what might that be?"
Lord Izuku smiled, tight and still as playful as Shoko's own. "The kind that works its way into every warning I was given before I attended this ball. The kind that makes people scared of you."
Shoko's smile sharpened into something fearsome. She drew in closer, her fingers trailing up his arm. "Are you scared of me?" she said, low and dangerous. "Surely, if you know my reputation , you know what I'm capable of. You know that, whatever secrets you have, I'll find them all eventually."
The moment of truth had arrived, Shoko realized; this was the moment when men wilted before her, when women backed away stammering, when all those faced with the persona and the legend she had so carefully crafted fell apart, too scared to challenge her, knowing what she did to those who dared. If he broke here, all that interest would be for naught; he would be just another lordling, too weak to trifle with, too flawed to shine.
Lord Izuku looked her in the eye, and smiled. In that smile, Shoko saw her own confidence-her own danger- reflected back on her like a mirror. The clouds parted; the curtain pulled back. For just a moment, Lord Izuku dropped just enough of the veneer of formality to let her get a look at the man behind those eyes-at the thing she had been searching for all along.
It was like staring into a thundercloud. Dark and steely, with lightning running through the cracks, with a mad light that crept into Shoko's own eyes as they spun around and around, fingers laced together, just on the edge of propriety as the world shrank down to that electric, dangerous feeling. There were no other dancers; there was no music. There was just the two of them, two lions in a field of sheep, eye-to-eye, refusing to back down.
Shoko felt a shiver run down her spine. With a jolt, she realized that it was fear.
Fear, and exhilaration.
"My lady," Lord Izuku murmured. "You're not the only one with a reputation , you know. A woman like you, in the business of knowing things…I have no intention of trying to hide my secrets from you. But if you want to try to get them out of me…feel free to try. The next time you talk to someone who's been to America, ask them about Titan."
At last, the song ended; dancers peeled away from their partners, spiraling out into a cacophony of laughter and conversation. For a few more steps, Shoko and Izuku swirled alone together, in the center of the floor; all alone, no music guiding them, still entwined, still on the edge of something they couldn't name.
At long last, they pulled back; Shoko drew apart from Izuku, his fingers slipping from her grasp. For another moment, they simply stared, sizing each other up, recognizing a threat.
Or, perhaps, something more.
Then, Shoko grinned.
"Congratulations, Lord Izuku," she said. "You officially have my interest."
Lord Izuku raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me if I find that concerning," he said mildly. "From what I understand, you being interested in someone generally has detrimental effects on their health."
Shoko's grin only widened as she tilted her head. "Perhaps," she admitted playfully. "But then, you're not new to danger, are you, Lord Izuku?"
Lord Izuku's face broke into a grin as wide as Shoko's own. "Maybe so," he said cryptically. "Maybe so. I worry sometimes that I've grown a little too fond of it."
Shoko's mind raced at that, relishing the wordplay, exhilarated by every word. She'd never felt like this before-never felt like there was real stakes to every sentence, never felt so challenged by anyone before. She wanted more of this.
"I suppose you have more introductions to make," she said, allowing genuine reluctance to creep into her voice. "I'm afraid I will be busy for the rest of the night; we will have to continue this conversation another time. I will see you at the next ball."
Lord Izuku smiled. "Will you?" he said. "You seem quite confident about that."
Shoko grinned. "I have my ways," she said mysteriously. "Now, I'm afraid I really must be going."
With that, she turned and sashayed away, feeling Lord Izuku's eyes lingering on her back as she vanished into the crowd, her whole body still ringing with the electric aftermath of coming face-to-face with the first person she'd ever met as dangerous as she was.
She made her way back to the balcony where she and Momo had first seen Lord Izuku's entrance. Sure enough, her right-hand woman was sitting at the table there, wineglass in her hand. She looked up as Shoko entered, a slightly bemused look on her face.
"Well, then," Momo said. "You put on quite the show, didn't you?"
Shoko grinned. "You bet," she replied. "How many people were watching?"
Momo snorted. "Everyone," she said simply. "You should've seen it. I've never seen anyone steal the show as completely as you and Lord Midoriya just did. It was like you were just…in your own world, and we were all orbiting around you."
"It felt like that, too," Shoko thought as she pulled out a chair and joined Momo at the table. Previously-unseen waiters approached, wine and refreshments in their hands, but she waved them off for the moment.
A few moments of silence passed as Shoko gathered her thoughts, until finally, Momo could stand the suspense so more.
"Well?" she demanded.
Shoko leaned back in her chair. "You'll have to be more specific, Lady Yaoyorozu," she said with false calm.
Momo sighed. "Well, what's your assessment?" she asked. "What do you think of Lord Izuku?"
Shoko raised a hand, intending to tap her lip thoughtfully, but froze halfway through the motion when she laid eyes on her hand.
It was shaking. Not too much, barely a little tremble, but it was a persistent little tremble, refusing to go away even when Shoko brought all of her willpower to bear on it.
She pushed her hand down flat on the table, forcing it to calm, but Momo had already noticed the tic; she looked at Shoko sharply, concern and more than a little alarm visible on her face.
Shoko knew why her hand was shaking; it was the thrill, the lingering adrenaline of coming face-to-face with a genuine peer, a genuine threat. It was the first time she had felt real, genuine danger in far, far too long. And she liked the feeling.
She looked Momo in the eye, and smiled. It was a terrifying sight, all bared teeth and gleaming, ominous promise.
"My assessment?" she asked. "My assessment is that Lord Izuku is the most interesting man I've ever met. And I can't wait to see what it takes to make him break."
As Momo's eyes went wide with fear, Shoko waved over one of the waiters who was not currently holding anything. The man stepped forward.
"Yes, my Lady?" he asked, as Shoko reached into a pocket in her dress and withdrew a small, golden card and a pen. She wrote something on it, then turned the card over to the waiter.
"Find Lord Izuku Midoriya," she commanded. "Give him this."
The man immediately obeyed, vanishing from sight in a matter of seconds. Momo looked at her in shock, and no small amount of worry.
"You can't be serious," she said. "An invitation?"
Shoko nodded, folding her hands together and laying her chin at the peak. "A challenge," she corrected. "I wonder how he'll respond."
No matter what happened, she knew it would be interesting.
She had to see him again. She had to see how this would go.
And if it blew up in their faces…well, wouldn't that be exciting?
Izuku made it just far enough from the dance floor to find a nice, quiet spot to collapse onto an empty chair.
Holy fuck, that had been stupid. Not only had he accepted a dance from Shoko fucking Todoroki, he'd started bantering with her.
Even if he hadn't been warned multiple times by Toshinori about just how insanely dangerous the woman was, one look at her had convinced him that, if anything, Toshinori had understated the absolute pants-shitting terror that she caused.
Izuku had been faced with death thousands of times. He had been shot at, shelled, set on fire, even gassed once or twice. And none of those experiences held a candle to Shoko Todoroki declaring him interesting.
He was so fucking stupid. He wasn't here to play mind games with the Ice Queen herself, he was here to get the lay of the land, meet the nobility…and, well, find himself a wife, but he really didn't need to remind himself about that.
But dammit…one look at her, and Izuku had realized that Lady Shoko Todoroki was by far the most dangerous woman he'd ever met. And quite frankly…he knew himself well enough to understand that he'd become something of a danger junkie over the years.
But then there'd been that dance…and there had been something between them, something that was most definitely dangerous, but was also exhilarating in a way Izuku hadn't felt since leaving America. And he…well, he wanted to feel it again.
So what the hell did he do now? He got the feeling that Shoko wasn't the sort to leave someone alone once she'd gotten him on her radar; this was going to be a major complication on his search for a wife, wasn't it?
Worse than that, how the fuck was he supposed to tell Toshinori about this? "Hey, Dad, you know the one person you specifically ordered me to avoid at all costs? Yeah, well, turns out she's super hot and I have zero self-control, so I started bantering with her in full view of every noble in Japan!"
Yeah. That'd go over well.
Luckily-or unluckily-for Izuku, he was jolted from his mild panic by the approach of a waiter. The man did not carry a platter or a wine jug, however; instead, as he stepped close to Izuku, he said, "I have a message for you, from Lady Shoko Todoroki."
Izuku's eyes shot open. "Oh, uh…" he began, only for the man to pull a card from his breast pocket and hand it to Izuku, who took it nervously.
The man retreated before Izuku could thank him, leaving him awkwardly staring after where he'd gone before finally turning his attention to the card. It was golden, with ornate black lettering printed on it that read:
You are invited to dine with Lady Shoko Todoroki in three days, at the feast held by Lord Iida in honor of the anniversary of the founding of his House.
Turning the card over, Izuku saw another note, this one clearly handwritten, in perfect, looping cursive that was so perfectly Shoko it was obvious who had written it;
Dear Lord Izuku,
Congratulations; you have my attention, and that is not an easy thing to obtain. I told you I would see you again, whether you want to or not. Please, continue to be the most interesting man at these damn stuffy parties. I look forward to hearing of your time in America.
Respectfully yours,
Lady Shoko.
Izuku could only shake his head. He may be an idiot who had already gotten himself in deep shit by drawing Lady Shoko's attention, but he wasn't enough of an idiot to risk her anger by turning down a hand-written invitation. So, he supposed he didn't really have a choice but to attend.
Maybe it was best if he didn't tell Toshinori about this, come to think of it.