Izuku tried and failed to match his footsteps to his heart—for with each step, his heart beat threefold. It was aflutter in his chest, wild and light and airy. His steps were purposeful, violent, perhaps, but even at top speed his heels would only barely meet the speeding rhythm of his heart.
There wasn't much of a blush to fight, thank god, but it was a close thing. His palms felt slick with sweat, his collar rubbed at his neck, and his shoes felt a little too tight as he wandered down to C154, trying to forget his lunch encounter. Well—forget was a strong word. Really, he doubted he could ever forget that conversation, given the beautiful girl in his lap and acute shame, but his deepest desire was to ignore it.
He picked at his uniform's freshly sewed sleeve, but endeavored not to pick. If it came undone now, he imagined he might melt into a puddle. The cafeteria was far behind him, now, and he made an effort to follow the path to the destination. He had no real experience in this section of the building—Language and Math and Science and Economics and all other major school topics took shelter in a single grand hall. With his partnership with Shimisuka and his seeming inability to have a normal day of school, he hadn't had the chance to visit any rooms.
After a time, when his heart rate dwindled and his sweat cooled on the small breeze of his speed-walk, he slowed. Izuku promised himself to not dilly-dally, but he couldn't help the occasional room-survey. Most of the room windows he peeked in were inconsequential. More storage than class—and most heroes he glanced were more part-time than on-the-clock.
The coolest thing he saw, before turning the corner of B Hall unto C Hall, was Midnight slaving over some homework on her desk. He winced when she pressed a red seal against the top corner. The second day? Really?
He didn't stay long enough to see if that was a single instance or a trend.
Turning into the C Hall, his eyes scoured the large oaken doors facing either side. C168 faced C174, and then adjacent to both were C167 and C173. He sighed, relieved he'd found the right hall, and began scouring each door for the correct number.
Izuku, so focused on finding the correct room, inexplicably tripped. He caught himself well, rolling into his shoulder and springing back to his feet in a second. Turning, he saw what he'd caught his feet on—but didn't quite understand. It wasn't some wet-floor sign or forgotten backpack or dropped binder. There was a lump in the floor—the solid, marble floor—about a man's width and python's length. The marble wasn't cracked, but it looked strange—warped, like floorboards after water damage or lawns after a mole infestation.
He glanced around. Izuku was alone in the hall except for his thoughts and this odd lump. For a moment, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do—did he inspect this himself? Call Nedzu?
After a moment of confused hesitance, he lowered himself and pressed his ear against the lump. He tapped his knuckles against the lump's crest, listening to the resounding crack that traveled down its length. Concentrating, he waited, and then the tapping rebounded, as if echoed in a cavern. Holding himself still a moment longer, he just barely made out the ebb and flow of some structural groan—like waves in a conch shell.
Careful not to put pressure on the lump in fear of its hollow collapse, he rose to his feet. He snapped a picture with his phone before stepping over the lump, his speed renewed. C154, as it turned out, was only a few dozen meters away, and when he finally snagged its doorknob, he didn't waste a moment before slipping inside.
Whatever deity above was watching out for him, he thanked it.
"Hey sir!" Izuku said, seeing Snipe crouched over his desk, pen and paper in hand. The pro hero's mysterious gaze flicked up to him, surprised.
"...Howdy Mid'oriya; what brings ya here? Ain't yer next class 'cross camp?" He asked, before redirecting his attention back down to his paperwork. Izuku felt surprised Snipe knowing his name, but then again, he should've expected it.
"Sir, I came to talk about your suit, but I think there's something more pressing you need to see."
He couldn't see the man's face—but Izuku knew the way his shoulders stiffened, his gait changing. It was odd, seeing the highschool teacher transform into a cautious hero—but also not, because it wasn't like night-and-day. No, it was more like Snipe suddenly slung a cape over his shoulders, and the responsible weight squeezed the best of him to the forefront.
"Where?"
Izuku doubled back to the hall, Snipe hot on his heels and gun half-drawn. It didn't take the Gun Hero more than a moment to assess the object of concern. He spent a good few moments bent over the fission, inspecting it. Izuku stood directly behind him, observing his analytical process.
He didn't bother pressing his ear down for a listen. Instead, he stood up and offered Izuku a serious nod.
"Thankee, fella. I'll have a custodian look into it."
With that said, the Gun Hero stepped aside, phone already half-retrieved from some secret pocket—but something was wrong. Maybe Izuku's mind was still strained from Nedzu's paperwork, or maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him, but when Snipe backed off, Izuku short circuited.
With his eyes on the Gun Hero, he hadn't seen it—but with his line of sight reinvigorated, he found a dissonance between before and now.
The lump was little more than a thin elevation—like water under paint. He didn't even think. With a near-silent Thwip, Blackwhip shot from his neck and encircled Snipe's phone-hand, freezing it before he could call a custodian.
"What da hail are ya doin' Mid—"
"Sir," Midoriya said, an ice-like calm infused his voice and esophagus and then neck and chest and then it spread to his fingers and toes and then his eyes and—
He pointed at the "lump," and after a moment of annoyed struggling, Snipe followed his finger. He fell silent. Before their eyes, the fission shrank, first slowly, then quickly, before sealing over fully.
The floor was normal. Izuku didn't know when Blackwhip retrieved his phone from his back pocket, but he found out when the quirk tilted its face to Izuku's on total autopilot, unlocking the device. Reaching out with a finger, he tapped open his camera gallery, and the quirk just about shoved the most recent image into Snipe's mug.
"That was what I found before I walked in the door, sir." Izuku said, still staring at the floor where the fission once existed. After a pause, he remembered Nighteye's advice on examining crime scenes. Establish a timeline. "Couldn't be more than two minutes ago. So it was that big at 12:23, and it couldn't have existed twenty minutes ago, since these halls get a lot of foot traffic for lunch. It's impossible to say how big it was, since the rate of dissolution was inconsistent—but it must've been man-sized. And hollow"
Blackwhip released Izuku's phone then, retreating back into his body as if sucked like a spaghetti noodle. With his eyes still on the fission, he snapped the device out of the air.
"...Understood. If this is an intrusion, it'd be a class 3 breach."
"Better safe than sorry, I'd say. Who knows what kind of damage a mole could do if they're still in the building."
The words came out easily, despite the implications. Snipe didn't waste a moment in nodding.
"Certunlee'. I'll call da boss, Mido—you evacuate. Ground exit's down da hall on yer far left. If ye can fly, I got 'n open window in my office."
Izuku nodded at the man, and turned for the office—before looking back.
A flash of silver bounced the overhead light into his eyes as Snipe's long-barreled revolver made itself known. His eyes caught on the man's rippling cape—and only now did he remember his original purpose for coming here. Bullet proof, fire retardant, and heavy enough to absorb the brute force of just about anything weaker than an exploding car engine. The fact that he took a fistfull of its edge spoke volumes about the situation.
For a moment, he questioned the man's intentions. Was his pistol truly necessary?
"Sir?" He asked, drawing the man's microscopic glance.
But in the gleam of his gasmask's eye holes, he found his answer. There was a protectiveness there; where cautious curiosity once held his gaze, a subtle ferocity had taken the whole of it hostage. Perhaps there was no mole—but Snipe was a hero, and wouldn't give less than his best for his kids. Even if he'd only known Izuku's peers for two days. Even if he'd only known Izuku for five minutes.
"Stay safe."
Snipe nodded, and the last he saw before jogging into Snipe's office and leaping out the open window was him reaching for his phone. He free-fell for two stories before a puff of green slowed his fall. When his sneakers met the ground, he found himself in a gaggle of second years, all of whom seemed rather surprised at his appearance—
And then the windows of U.A. turned red, and alarms began blaring across campus.
"Class 3 emergency! Class 3 emergency! Please leave the building in an orderly fashion."
They looked at him, then to where he'd leapt from the building, then back to him.
"Did, ah… don't tell me that was you?" One asked, sporting shaggy purple hair and snakebite-studs on his lower lip. He raised a hand between them, his similarly bedazzled ring-finger seeming to glow with energy as his silver rings shifted and warped into something akin to a claw-like attachment. Around him, three other second-years stepped back, their quirks awaking alongside the purple-maned boy.
Izuku blinked, and assessed himself with a curious hand—and realized his expression was still hard. He pressed Danger Sense outwards—and found a small excitement targeted at himself—but also his confused and obviously nervous seniors. Izuku parsed through the quirk, scouring the source of the dangers—but found nothing. Danger Sense expanded in diameter a bit, then more, and more, and finally it crouched at his limits—but the danger grew no more nor any less. Not even from within the building from which he'd just leapt. It expanded to a point where it consumed most of U.A.'s C Hall—but still, no more danger.
Of course, the danger to himself came from the four cautious upperclassmen that just saw him leap from a school window before an alarm went off… but—
He blinked as something wriggled on his back—like a snake shoved down his undershirt. It twitched, now that he found it, and within a millisecond the Blackwhip retreated back into his lumbar spinal column. The danger to his peers eased to nothing.
Izuku didn't have time to consider the implications, however, as the nearest doors to U.A. burst open and a crowd surged outwards—a mix of freshmen and seniors and staff and everyone in between.
The danger to his own person evaporated as his upperclassmen noticed the commotion, and in their distraction, forgot about him. He slipped away and around, diving head-first into the crowd when he saw a wavy head of swamp-green. The force with which he grabbed Setsuna was by no means excessive—but it was enough to surprise her. She struggled against him for a split second before she seemed to recognize his touch.
"Izu?" She asked, wide-eyed, before he snagged her hand and pulled her from the crowd..
He held her tight as he took her aside, making sure no one bulldozed either of them. She never contested him, even as he pulled her out of sight of the student body, even as they crouched behind a bush.
Izuku searched her face for any harm or stress—and only found surprise. He sighed, feeling a slight release in his tense shoulders. Placing a hand on her arm, he glanced upwards—to the open window he'd leapt from.
"What's going on?" She asked, glancing at him and his hand and the window of his attention. "Are you alright? What are we—"
His mind buzzed with adrenaline—adrenaline born from a discrepancy. Danger Sense saw nothing in C Hall—but what he saw, he saw.
"I think there's an intruder." Izuku said, cutting her off. He leveled her with a serious expression, and her beautiful doe-eyes dilated. "You're perfect, Set. Can you split up your sensory organs and comb through the building? You'd be looking for something like this."
He pulled out his phone, showing her the fission-lump.
"Can you look for something like this in the C Hall wing? Snipe is on the job, and I'm sure others are too—but none of the staff are sensory types. Please. I think they'll need help."
Her mouth went a little funny, persing and parting and forming an odd shape—before settling in a serious, flat line.
"You had me at "You're Perfect," she said, before her head split apart like a master chef would dice an onion. Her pupils, even dilated, split into four neat quarters. The eight pieces flew from her face, smaller than flies, quickly followed by a pair of nostrils and finally by her ears. What remained were her lips and everything below. Soon, the small organs zipped up and through the open window, out of sight.
He remained with her near-motionless body. For a moment, he itched to follow with a burst of Smokescreen and Blackwhip—but the thought of slingshotting himself up the side of U.A. with Blackwhip made his gut twist, so he grit his teeth and settled beside his near-headless friend. He surveyed C Hall again with Danger Sense, but found nothing once again.
With nothing better to do, he took her cold palms into his own and intertwined their fingers. There was a rather cool breeze on the wind, after all, even with the bush hiding them from the world. He wouldn't want her hands to get cold.
On one hand, he hoped he wasn't wasting her time. He wanted to help, but it was clear whatever was happening didn't pose an immediate threat. Danger Sense was an incredible sensory quirk, but it was only effective when there was danger. When there wasn't, he was blind. So, he trusted Setsuna to at least provide some other value for the professionals. At the same time, however…
He almost hoped they wouldn't find anything. No—that wasn't true. He wanted this problem solved, and the idea of an intruder in U.A. was just down-right scary. What he actually wanted, despite his requests, was for Setsuna to not find anything. Izuku may not sense any danger now, but it was impossible to say that there couldn't be any later. It was a selfish desire, and stupid, since he'd set her on this errand in the first place—but it was just the conundrum of his mind versus his heart.
Izuku wanted the intruder discovered and dealt with, and Setsuna was perfect for the job. He did not want her actually having to deal with an intruder, even if only as a scout.
His gut squeezed. If she got hurt because of him—
He tightened his grip on her hand… and he almost pissed himself when she squeezed back. It might've slipped his mind that she could still feel without her brain attached.
[x]
Shouta sighed—but not out of exasperation. No, it was a frustrated thing, born from the greater situation. He surveyed his class, and on some level, he was happy. They were all there. It'd taken an hour longer than he would've liked, but the building was secure and his class accounted for.
Ms. Asui raised her hand.
"Aizawa sir, are we continuing class after what happened at lunch?" She asked, for which he received similar nods from her peers. His eyes, without his permission, flicked to Midoriya and then back to the girl. She did not know. None of them did—except Midoriya. Here, he had a choice: to keep everyone ignorant, or catch everyone up to the same place.
Well, the answer was only logical.
"Yes, we are continuing with class. What happened in lunch is what we call a Class 3 Emergency, B-Level Intrusion—but there was no true intruder. An anonymous student discovered an aberration in the floors down the hall, and set Snipe on the case. From what we found, there are a string of aberrations under the building, like tunnels collapsed and twisted. However, a General Education student with a geological sensory quirk and a Business Class student with a sort of omnidirectional infrared vision confirmed no life under the building. An A-Level Intrusion would be an active, tangible threat. As best we can tell, it's just as likely to be a wild animal possessing a quirk as it could be a senior prank. Still, the building is clear and Principal Nedzu has contracted a company to survey our land and install tuning sensors in case anything like this happens again."
The class shifted a turn for the uncomfortable. Toru's shoulders twisted a smidge, and Aizawa deduced her attention settled on Midoriya. He made a conscious effort not to look in the boy's direction—though his mind replayed a dozen questions. What did Toru know? Why was she looking at Midoriya? Did he tell her? He doubted it—when 1A finally rejoined him in the Intro to Heroics room, he came alone. Even when his clique seemed to question him, it was like an invisible wall split them apart. Midoriya remained cordial as always, but he hadn't so much as smiled in the time since arriving—something he dedicated much of his general freetime towards.
The questions took a victory lap in his brain, proud they were able to distract him for the split second he allowed, before he crushed them.
"Don't waste time worrying, kids," he said, knowing the hypocrisy. He doubted he'd be sleeping for the next few days. "Take all that energy and put it towards not failing my class. You have things to learn and I have things to teach. Remember the Suit Adjustment assignment?"
A low groan escaped the class at the mention of last night's micro essay—but it released the room's tension, and he managed to transition everyone from fearful speculation to reluctant education.
"Pass up your essays, take your cases, and swap into your current uniforms. Don't bother waiting—I can read fast."
If the previous collective groan was loud, this one should've shaken the building's foundations. Teenagers.
Most were quick enough to get it over with. They grabbed papers, some neat, some crumpled, from their bags and handed them up to him. He received them in silence, only watching with dull interest as they hurried over to the equipment station and escaped with their cases. Midoriya was the first, par his expectations—but at a glance, the most odd. Instead of writing a singular, three-point essay, it seems he wrote a small bible on… Toru, it seemed. Shouta blinked.
He wasn't sure how he wrote that much on something so simple, but when the eleven pages of paper slid into his hand, he wondered, staring at the miniscule calligraphy, if he could even finish it all the school's remaining day.
The class was thin when he noticed Toru still sitting at her desk, idle. Most everyone either moved onto the locker room by now, or was grabbing their case. She was the only one yet to move.
With a casual thumb, he flicked through the stack of names on his desk. 19. One missing. When she made no notice of his staring, he sighed and got to his feet.
Only when he stood over her did she take notice of him. She flinched once, hard, and then scooped the stack of papers on her desk into a neat, anonymous pile. Shouta just raised an eyebrow as she clumsily picked through the corners of each sheet before seeming to find the one she wanted. He received it in silence, glancing down. Neat, rounded letters adorned the paper. There was a three marked in the corner.
He hovered, waiting for more, but when her uniform crinkled and he understood she was simply looking up at him, unmoving, he understood that was it. Without complaint, he returned to his desk and began to skim through it all—but he never stopped wondering.
Shouta saw those papers. All were on Midoriya—but she only offered him the one. His mind returned to a few minutes prior, when she glanced at him—was that the only time? Did they have an argument? That couldn't be right, since Midoriya basically dropped the Newest Testament in his lap.
Heaven above, he thought, skimming Ibara's essay on Reiko's costume. Since when did he worry about students' social lives like this? Was he going soft? Or was that simply the effect of Midoriya? Ever since that kid had the misfortune of coming into Shouta's life, things felt different.
She wasn't the only one chancing looks in the amputee's direction, either. It was easier to count who wasn't interested in the boy rather than who was. Ibara and Reiko seemed to be especially elusive spectators, constantly looking between themselves and the kid. There was some tension there, he'd noticed—though not of a kind worth intervening for. Yet. If that dissonance turned corruptive, he'd have to make an official stance as their teacher—but that was for later. They were good kids. He hoped they figured themselves out before he involved himself.
At last when Toru, the last straggler, left the room to change, he leaned back into his chair. The strength of his eyelids threatened to go on strike, there and then, but the millisecond they lowered, he shot back up, papers crinkling in hand.
His pulse was in his ears. School, he reminded himself. Students.
He made to go back to reading, but the creak of the door stole him from his reverie.
"You don't really think it was a wild animal, do you?" Midoriya asked, leaning against the threshold like a recently-woken coma patient. His green-gray suit hugged his frame comfortably, but there were wrinkles around the rib cage where he bent against the wall, holding himself up. If Shouta didn't intimately know the weight of hollow bones and thin blood and heavy eyes, he might've said the boy looked more tired than Shouta felt.
The question, however, bridged the truth over that gap. It weighed on him, and he almost closed his eyes again—but now he had a student in front of him. A promising one. Someone Shouta could trust. One who always finds a way to be the center of his attention. Midoriya was always contending against him, blowing up massive structures, or witnessing possible security breaches that Shouta didn't even want to consider now. He kept his eyes steady.
"A wild animal wouldn't breach the school's second floor, let alone the third. And the other breaches wouldn't be in a straight line between the building's entrance and the teacher's lounge. They'd meander—go in wild, animalistic directions."
"There's no one in the building, Midoriya. The walls have been cleared, the ground has been surveyed, and security has been tripled. Don't waste your genius on the little things. My job is to worry about those things, not you."
"So you are worried." He said, before shoving himself off the wall and slipping into his seat.
"Don't sass me like a child, Midoriya. I have hopes that you're better than that. In any case, how on earth would you know about the other abrasions in the building? Sure, I referenced their existence, but I never mentioned their locations, let alone their auspicious orientations."
"I trust my eyes and ears," he said, and left it at that. They fell into silence, then, and Aizawa half-skimmed the essays and half watched the boy in his peripherals. He seemed withdrawn, his gaze downturned and his grip on his suit's loose arm. Chin on shoulder, he pinched off a section of his suit's empty sleeve before replacing it, and watched the fission heal over. Self-healing material was remarkable, Shouta admitted to himself. If it wasn't so thin, he'd always wear it. Stitching up stab wounds always put him in a mood.
Midoriya seemed far less pleased.
The boy continued to pick, replace, and inspect his shoulder until the rest of the class returned. Everyone seemed to have a renewed excitement for the class, now that they were in their suits. Shouta found it to be a common occurrence—spirits usually went up when the suits came on, and vice versa when they came off. It was illogical, but so long as it didn't go too far, it was harmless.
He eyed Aoyama as his diamond-studded cape hung off his chair, but the blonde didn't collapse under the weight, nor did the desk, so Shouta had no complaints. Even when the flamboyant young man kicked up his feet. If it collapsed under him… well, then the first hand experience would save Shouta the headache of explaining the consequences of wearing medieval armor.
Aoyama wasn't the only student with a ridiculous suit, however. Most wore jumpsuits with no padding. Few had utilities. Ms. Asui, bless her heart, wore heels. Their best suits, in his opinion, were between Mezou's, Sero's, and Tokoyami's. Each were functional, simple, and in some way enabled their latent abilities.
Midoriya's was up there. The self-healing material made his ropes easier to use, and he had quite the utility belt to his name—the class's most substantial, by his estimate. What held him back was twofold. Firstly, the suit had absolutely no impression—even Shouta, who wore an all-black jumper and called it a hero costume, could see this—and secondly, the core material was self-healing. Convenient, yes, effective, no.
"Can anyone tell me what makes a good hero costume?" Shouta asked, throwing the question into the class like a bone to ravenous dogs. The excited chatter collapsed, and in its place, hands raised. He blinked in Ojiro's general direction.
His hand came down.
"Mm… Simple. Iconic. Effective."
A few hands dropped around class, but who remained seemed even more encouraged. Shouta leaned forward in his seat, sneaked the occasional glance at the essays in his lap, and shrugged.
"You just described a good hero costume. Not what makes one. Anyone else?"
He parsed through the straining hands and selected the arm with the dark wrist-warmer.
"Something based around hiding your weaknesses and amplifying your strengths. My cape makes my quirk stronger, but it also softens blunt force and hides my body. I'm not particularly strong, so I kinda need it." Tokoyami said.
Shouta nodded, and motioned for the rest of class to relax.
"Pretty much. If your suit doesn't give you an advantage you wouldn't otherwise have, then it needs to be redesigned. Personally, I recommend focusing on one thing at a time. For example…" Shouta said, glancing around the room. He was quick to narrow down on the easiest targets, but choosing the least offensive item proved difficult. Each and every useless, detractory, or plain boring piece on his student's costumes seemed placed with some sort of love.
He could target Asui's heels, Aoyoma's cape, Ashido's low bust-line, or Ibara's god-damn dress, but each and every one felt awkward to tackle. Of course, eventually, his kids would phase them out, but right now, when they're impressionable, he struggled to vocalize their exact issues.
The low creak of a desk-chair echoed around the room. For a second, he didn't even notice what happened—but then Toru's gloves hovered awkwardly above her desk, and he realized she stood up.
Shouta couldn't see her. He wished he could. As things stood, he could only imagine her expressions, her gestures, the fire in her eyes. Dealing with a student he couldn't read made teaching a thousand times more difficult—but he doubted his difficulties with her were greater than hers with him.
"W-what could I focus my suit on? I-I—" She began, but trailed off.
"Off the top of my head? I'd focus on optimizing your stealth and utility ratio. Your boots are silly, but necessary, because I'm not sending you out into the field where you could cripple yourself by stepping on broken glass. Your gloves, on the other hand? Minimizing those would make you far more effective in the field."
He tried to give her an amiable offer, but while the words left his lips fair and reasonable, he forgot he was talking to the least fair and least reasonable type of person: a teenage girl. They entered her ears wrong, and he noticed this in the way her gloves curled on themselves, fists squeezing.
"B-but…" Toru muttered, dropping back into her seat. She said something under her breath he couldn't catch, before speaking back up. "...They're cute."
Shouta didn't have the heart to touch upon that now, in front of the whole class. Instead, he nodded, and pulled the stacks of essays from his lap—all except for the last, Midoriya's, which he'd yet to even tackle.
"Perhaps. What you'll find, however—and that goes for the rest of you as well—is that what you might think of as "cute," another will find as a mechanical hindrance. Come up here and take your partner's essay. Read it over. And, take this," Shouta said, and beside the essays, slid out the paper forms for a suit-adjustment request. "I'll want to see at least one marked improvement on everyone's suit. This will be a collaborative grade."
A few groans, but Shouta was glad to see less than before. Now that they've gotten a taste of the assignment, they're far more open to it—and it didn't hurt that at the end of it all, they'll have better suits. He could imagine their excitement, even if he'd never been much for it himself.
Everyone came up in pairs, grabbing each other's paperwork. Some desks scraped against the floor as they came together, some students sat on their partner's desks, and a rare few chose not to sit whatsoever. It was long-going, but after a time, the only people left were Toru and Midoriya.
The green-haired boy hovered over Shouta's desk, looking between his papers and Toru, who still sat in her's. He still seemed withdrawn, his focus narrow. It was like he was a few seconds behind. Normal enough, for students during exam season—but he supposed this was an extraordinary circumstance. It wasn't every day U.A. had a false alarm. Shouta himself was certainly feeling the same stress—he was better at hiding it.
Or, he thought, glancing at the boy's shoulder, he just had less on his plate.
"Midoriya," he began, before pausing, unsure what he meant to say. He glanced to Toru again, equally withdrawn as the teenager before him. Neither seemed to be in the headspace to talk. No point in forcing them. "You and your partner seem tired today. Be sure to communicate soon, but it doesn't have to be today. You have until Friday morning."
The teenager blinked at him twice, each slower than necessary.
"What's on Friday, sir?"
"Ah," Shouta said, because it was nice to actually know what to say. "We'll be holding our first rescue-training class. It'll be across campus, at the USJ."
[x]
His heel-clicks echoed down the long hall, empty of decoration and employees alike. He turned left and slipped into an elevator. It was empty. His thumb found purchase on the sub-basement floor, and the ground lurched as he began his descent. The ride felt longer than it was. Redestro's mind was abuzz with thoughts—but not feelings.
His chest felt cold, but his mind? His mind was aflame. Strategies incinerated the chatter his mind typically ran through, statistics and politics and money carving burning paths through his neurons. All his nerves, his anxieties, his fears—they'd been pushed aside, shoved deep down, forgotten, swallowed. Today, he was just numbers. It was all he allowed himself to be—all it allowed him to be.
Deep, shaking thuds rocked the elevator as his descent neared its end. Metallic groans pierced his ears—tearing metal, rotting metal, crunching metal—and Stress swallowed whatever those noises birthed in his chest. Just like everything else. Leaving him hollow. It'd been ravenous, recently.
When the elevator doors parted and he got his first real look at his… employee, he felt nothing. There was nothing left to give in his chest. All he felt—all he knew—was the basic math.
Tomura rolled a shoulder, stretching as he devoured a water bottle. With the last of his bandages off and his limp cared for, the prince was back in good health.
Redestro's eyes scoured the room, and much like how Stress ate away his feelings, his eyes ate away the details. Punching bags with holes in them. Combat-Machines disarmed, torn asunder, rotted to nothing. The treadmill track was worn and torn, overused and in desperate need of replacement. Odd thing, that—he'd had a new one installed just two nights ago.
Tomura crushed the now-empty bottle in his hands and tossed it aside, making a perfect bucket. If he noticed Redestro, he didn't show it. In four long strides, the prince leapt into the air, grabbed two rings, and began what Redestro could only describe as a gymnast's dream performance.
With just the strength of his arms, he began to do flys. With his fists over his head, he pulled the rings outwards, elbows locked, until the rings hugged his thighs. He held himself there for a moment, then two, before relaxing a bit. Reversing, he allowed his arms to go straight out—but then stopped, and crucified himself for two moments again before relaxing entirely. The process repeated several times as Redestro just watched, intrigued at the prince's athleticism.
He looked quite fit, that much was obvious—inhumanly so, it seemed—but something still felt… missing. Was this truly the son of All for One? The Demon King? The Lord of Darkness?
"Oi." Tomura said, twisting on the rings to see Redestro hovering around the entrance. "You're here?"
Redestro nodded, but the prince didn't wait for his reply. He returned to his workout—so Rikiya cleared his throat.
"Indeed. How is your form?"
Tomura flipped upside down and held himself in a handstand with the rings. His core quivered a smidge, but other than that, he was still as stone.
"Still rusty. Didn't used to need two hands for this." He said, and Rikiya only raised an eyebrow at his ice-like tone. There was no strain—not even a hint of exhaustion. "But better. I actually feel like I can move."
"Well, the bandages only came off yesterday. It's understandable that you've been feeling constrained. What's impressive is your quick recovery."
Tomura, upside down, blinked at Rikiya with the full weight of his scarred expression. He did a sort of shrug—but it was more like a pushup.
"Bandages? That's… sure. If you want an official report, just know I'm feeling quite a bit… more control."
Perhaps, if Stress hadn't swept his soul away in its gluttony, Rikiya might've smiled.
"Good. It seems then that your revenge will be arriving far earlier than expected. The Crow is mobilizing—and our informants suspect U.A. as the target. All-out-war is coming."
Tomura leaned forward, somersaulting as he released the rings and landed on his feet. Not a hair was out of place on his mangey skull. In one swig, he snatched another water bottle, chugged it, and squeezed.
It turned to ash in his hand. He blew his palm, and the water bottle's remains went thin in the air. There was an approximation of a smile on the prince's face, but that was it. An approximation. The little scars on his cheeks rose like dimples, but his lips sat on a hard, thin line.
"My revenge? Double was yours too, old man. Don't forget that. Don't forget him."
Rikiya was silent for a moment. Between breaths, a tsunami of energy surged in his chest, threatened to drown his ship—but ever-commanding Poseidon tackled the wave, smothering the storm into flat, sunny waters. He turned back for the elevator.
"Your mission will be Friday, by our estimate. As Vanguard-Captain, it's your duty to stop the Crow in their tracks—but never forget." Rikiya said, turning a single eye over his shoulder. Tomura stood stock-still, as if every muscle tensed for the command. "You're a soldier, now—but you're also much more than that. Don't get captured. Not by the Crow. Not by U.A. As much as killing kids horrifies me, if it ensures your safety, I don't want you to hesitate if it means you return to me. Not even for a second. And—don't let our secret out. Trash everything before our identity is revealed. This is black-ops."
Rikiya wondered, then, for a moment, if he'd said too much—been too honest—but then Tomura smirked.
"Scorched Earth Policy? Pitch-black morals? Killing kids if it's convenient for you? God-damn, 'Destro—you're sounding more like a businessman than ever. Maybe the Stress is getting to you."
Rikiya didn't smile. He didn't find that jab humorous.
"Don't question it. You're getting paid well."
"Oh, and now you're delusional, too. Blood money doesn't exactly getcha candy at the gas station, y'know."
Rikiya glanced down at his gilded watch. He was late for his next meeting.
"Don't speak ill of blood-money. When it's all over, it'll be the currency of our new empire."
Tomura snorted.
"Sure, old man. Sure."
[x]
AN: I believe this makes 300,000 words! Let's go. This is easily my best and longest fanfic-not really a hard task, tbh. There's been a few hiccups-sometimes I accidentally write about Izuku's "hands," or sometimes I've made narrative hiccups-but I'm still proud of it. I've weathered the storm, and as much as these negative reviews can legitimately ruin my day sometimes, the good ones are literally so heartwarming.
Thanks, directly, to the numerous readers over here who went onto AO3 and defended me. You are appreciated.
Anyways! This and next chapter are major set-up chapters, and then we'll get right into the action! Look forward to 49-(I'm currently cranking out fifty. It's hard as hell, but I hope it ends as good as I think it will)
Review!