Hey gals and gamers I hope you enjoy, this should be the last chapter before the start of the sports festival. Apologies for being this late to upload, I struggled with some interactions and had less time to write due to general life things. Also this chapter is going to be a bit differently structured than normal as this chapter will cover events from the 2 weeks before the sports festival, so each section will be a different day and will be labeled. The first half of this chapter is just casual interactions and days but there is important stuff in this chapter as well.

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The Maximum Hero : Ghosts in your mind

13 days before the sports festival

Enough time has passed by now that Izuku feels normal again, he spent his Sunday just lazing around as he had planned, just did his morning exercises before a full day of chilling. That gave him a recharge then on Monday it was a simple school day that allowed him to fully ease himself back into normalcy.

So that brings him to today which is Tuesday and class has been pretty boring actually, he assumes hero class will continue to be theory for now until Aizawa is back to normal condition since he is their homeroom teacher and along with All Might teaches the hero class.

He is on his way out of school grounds when he feels a tap on his shoulder, it's Kaminari.

"Hey man, I'm pretty bored and I want to do something before we all go to the beach, so how's about the crime bros go and help themselves to some Takoyaki, I saw a food stand on the way to the train stop the other day", Kaminari suggests as he walks side by side with Izuku.

Takoyaki does sound good, and it'd also be nice to hang out with a friend for the first time in a while.

Before he has time to answer Kaminari speaks up with 2 magical words, "I'll buy".

Izuku grins and looks at Kaminari who is sporting a confident smirk, he was already going to say yes but now. "Hey who says no to free food, lead the way Kaminari".

"Let's goo!" Kaminari speeds up and walks slightly in front of Izuku so he can lead his green haired friend to the food stand. Izuku makes sure to text his mom before it gets too late and she begins to worry.

According to Kaminari it isn't a long walk but he makes conversation anyway "So how are you feeling about your chances in the sports festival?".

The blonde boy places both his hands behind his head as continues forward, "I want to win because who wouldn't? But I think I can safely make it into the final part, since normally it's broken up into 3 sections, what about you? How do you think you'll do?."

That's right they are! That slipped his mind but other than the final competition that is always a form of tournament it could be anything. "I don't know, who knows what the first 2 rounds will be, while I think I can handle physical tasks, what if that doesn't help?"

Kaminari sighs, "I didnt think about that, hopefully they aren't anything too crazy, oh the stand is here by the way."

Kaminari stops in front of the stand and it looks pretty standard for a Takoyaki stand, there's the main counter where the food is prepared and payment is accepted along with chairs to sit but then there are 2 small tables next to it if you don't want to sit in the main counter.

"This place seems nice, but it's a bit out of the way of the usual path we take though, how'd you find it?", Izuku genuinely asks.

"Oh I missed my train stop since I had to use the restroom after class yesterday so I had to kill some time until the next train so I just adventured the area, I was going to get some to eat but I was running out of time". Kaminari explains as they walk up to order.

So that's where he was yesterday.

"What do you want to order?", Kaminari points towards the menu.

Since Kaminari is the one treating Izuku here he doesn't want to order anything expensive and seem rude, so with that in mind. "I think just order double whatever you order", yeah that should be fine.

Obviously that was the wrong thing to say because once the words left his mouth Kaminari gains a mischievous grin. "Whatever I order you say?".

Izuku almost wants to take back his words but refrains, "Y-Yeah".

Kaminari steps up to the waiting stand owner and places their order much faster than Izuku would expect, "2 orders of Takoyaki madness please!"

Takoyaki madness? Is that some sort of promotion? Izuku decides to actually look at the large menu displayed over the stand and it's pretty standard, there's classic takoyaki, then there's shrimp, crab, and tofu options, all of which come in sets of 3, 6, and 8 ball servings along with several drink options. Then he sees it, takoyaki madness, it's a type of challenge where you are served THIRTY CLASSIC TAKOYAKI BALLS, HOW IS THAT FAIR and if you complete it you get it for free and get your picture taken and put up on the wall with other winners. There have been 7 winners.

Kaminari taps his shoulder, "let's sit down at that table there since it's a bit bigger than the other", he is still grinning while he wraps his arm around Izuku and leads him to the table.

"Kaminari?"

"Yeah buddy?"

"Why did you order those."

"Why not?"

They both sit down on chairs opposite of each other and Izuku is feeling a bit nervous, "hey Kaminari… how much is the Takoyaki madness per person?", he is feeling guilty since 30 takoyaki balls can't be cheap even if it is just takoyaki there's 30 of them, each!

Kaminari waves his hands casually, "Don't worry about it besides… it's not like we're going to have to pay", once again his face morphs into a grin, a confident one this time.

"I- I'll try my best", he means it, he doesn't want his friend to have to spend more money than he can afford,

"Both of us will, anyway how are you training for the sports festival?", the electric teen asks.

Izuku wasn't really expecting Kaminari to be so invested in the sports festival but he should've known better since they are both hero students. "Not much has changed actually, I have my morning jog and stretches then later in the day I have my strength training, what about you?".

Kaminari actually blushes a small amount before speaking, "To be blunt I don't exercise as much as I should, I mean I do workout! Dont think im a complete sloth, but man I am nowhere near as built as you or Kirishima for example. But I'm training my quirk by charging myself with an outlet connection to slowly raise my maximum output capability."

"That's so cool! Can you not force it to go faster or is there a limit where it stops being helpful, if there's no limit why not use something bigger like a car battery? Similar to jump starting a car and the energy output should do the same thing an outlet does just on a bigger scale.",Izuku quickly theorizes. Izuku wonders, if Kaminari trains enough would he be able to get past his short circuiting problem?

"I have considered using a higher form of electricity to train but never jumpstarting myself with a car, I should try that out it could work out really well.", the electric teen admits. "Hey, so what exactly did you do when you went with Yaoyorozu last week? I can't remember."

Izuku swore he told him about the weekly report but if he forgot he can just remind him, "As class representatives we have to submit weekly reports based on the events of the weeks if we deem anything important enough to bring to our sensei's attention, so we wrote based on the invasion,how it affected everyone and stuff like that".

"Oh that makes sense, I wouldn't mind being alone with Yaoyorozu myself, maybe I should ask her out eh?" Kaminari… jokes? His face is playful but he wouldn't be surprised if he actually did ask.

"I-If you say so".

Their small talk is cut short as a short woman with an apron walks towards them with 2 large bowls and 2 cups of water on a large tray, she isn't the same person who took their order so she must be the cook.

She places the bowls, chopsticks and waters on the table, each of them getting one set, she keeps the large tray though, "Okay the time limit is fifty minutes and all you have to do is eat all the takoyaki balls without throwing up and you win! I'll be keeping watch from the stand so you can't try and throw any away or use your quirks so no funny business!". She places a small digital timer on their table and walks away and sits behind the counter where she does keep a casual eye on them but it's clear she isn't expecting them to cheat.

Izuku turns his attention back to the monstrous serving in front of him, in a short but wide bowl there are 30 takoyaki balls stacked in a pyramid. Typically takoyaki is around the size of a golf ball, but these are noticeably bigger, while this is normally a good thing since it gives more food, now is terrible for that exact same reason. He is even less sure that he can finish this now.

"Hey Midoriya don't overthink it, let's just enjoy ourselves and stuff our faces, we can do this come on!" Kaminari encourages sounding genuinely excited.

Okay okay he's right, 30 balls that's just 3 servings of 10 and he has eaten those before without getting full he just has to do that again, times 3. He lifts the first takoyaki ball to his face with his chopsticks and takes a bite. It's delicious, the perfect amount of crispy but not tough batter along with warm and savory filling which all combine to create a fantastic food, maybe this won't be so bad.

…40 minutes later…

"K….Kaminari… I… I can't eat any more… this is my limit", Izuku is holding his stomach and taking deep breaths.

Kaminari swallows his food with great difficulty, "Come on Izuku… you-", he gags slightly, "we can do this… I only have 4 left and you have 7". He takes a tiny sip of water, "let me try something ", the boy takes his hands off the table and messes with something under the table before lifting his belt and dropping it on the floor by his feet. "That… kind of helped"

Izuku copies his technique but only unbuckles his belt as opposed to fully removing it, it actually does help his stomach feel less strained. He quickly stuffs his mouth with another ball and eats it before he can think about how wrong it feels to continue eating.

"Ok Midoriya don't think about just eating empty your brain".

A few more minutes pass then a victorious yell is heard, "I… I did it!"Kaminari says as loudly as he can without vomiting. His voice is now much weaker and heavy" 2 minutes left Midoriya… and you have 3 left".

Izuku has no doubt in his mind that if he eats a singular bite more he is going to decorate this entire table with semi-digested takoyaki, speaking seems like a hurdle in itself and he is amazed at how Kaminari can still talk. "My…..stomach….will burst….if I take…one more bite…". He wants to finish the rest he doesn't want to waste his friends money but this feels impossible.

"We are hero students", Kaminari seems to be slowly regaining his composure, "How can we save people and fight villains… if we can't even defeat a food challenge". He takes a deep breath and smiles bright and hearty, "Go beyond, PLUS ULTRA!" the effect is tainted by the teen then grabbing his mouth with both hands to hold back his urge to vomit.

But the effect is not lost on Midoriya and with renewed determination he stuffs a whole takoyaki in his mouth and forces himself to chew manually and swallow, 1 down 2 to go. The next one goes down the same but 3 times as difficult, then there is one left.

He lefts it to his mouth and by now he is so stuffed that he physically fights his urge to place down the food and stop, he takes one bite, then stuffs the remaining part in his mouth as well and fights the need to vomit. Izuku grabs his water and takes a swig, the water makes it easier to chew and with Kaminari pumping his fist weakly in encouragement, Izuku finally completes the final ball and joins his friend in victory with 20 seconds to spare.

"Wow you both actually ate them all, I especially wasn't expecting you to survive with how you were basically turning green", she points at Midoriya who is face down on the table holding his stomach. "Unless you guys object it's time to take your pictures", she is holding a polaroid camera in her right hand.

Kaminari glances at Izuku who gives a weak thumbs up, "No objections here".

"Ok do you want to go first?", the lady asks Kaminari who nods, "three, two, one, say takoyakiiii".

"Takoyakiiii"

CLICK

A spare picture is ejected from the camera and the woman grabs it and places it on the table next to her. She turns to Izuku, "I need you to look at the camera please".

Izuku weakly lifts his head and looks into the camera eye.

"Three, two, one, say takoyakiii"

"Takoyak- BURP", a hearty burp escapes his lips and before he even has time to react the camera flashes as the picture is taken.

The lady grabs the picture along with the one she placed on the table, she then steps to the two boys and shows them the photos.

Kaminari looks fine in his photo, a little red from being so full and kind of drowsy looking but fine. Izuku isn't so lucky, the picture shows him in the middle of his burp, mouth wide open and eyes wide with surprise, not to mention his slumped, tired posture. Izuku turns to Kaminari who is trying his absolute hardest not to laugh.

"Thank you for competing and as stated your meals are both free, have a great rest of your day and do come again." The lady grabs the empty bowls and mostly empty waters before returning to behind the stand where she places the 2 new pictures on the wall with the others.

The boys spend the next 10 minutes simply at the table with their heads down letting their food digest, neither of them felt like walking after eating all that food.

Once they gather themselves they slowly rise to their feet and make their way to the train station, as they begin to reach the intersection where they need to part ways they finally speak.

"Man I didn't think we'd be able to finish that did you?" Kaminari admits.

"WHAT?!", Izuku shouts, "YOU DIDN'T EXPECT TO WIN"

"Heh, yeah I just wanted to see if we could, I thought even if we lost it would be a fun experience, and it was!", Kaminari smiles honestly.

Izuku returns his smile, "It was fun".

They reach the intersection and say their goodbyes.

"Bye Midoriya"

"See you Kaminari"

Once Izuku makes it home he immediately goes to his room and falls onto his bed and he falls asleep immediately. Today was a good day

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

11 days before the sports festival

"E-excuse me A-All Might sensei but do you mind signing something for me?", Izuku has brought his All Mights mighty adventure #1 with him to school today in hopes of getting it signed. It took him a while to gather the courage to actually ask, he had brought the comic twice before but failed to ask. Classes are over and Izuku managed to catch All Might before he left the building.

All Might's eyes quickly dart to the door but Izuku still notices and feels a tad guilty, maybe he had somewhere to be and he was slowing him down, "I-I-I'm sorry for b-bothering you if you have somewhere to be this isn't that important anyway." He quickly stutters out an apology, of course a hero like All Might would have places to be.

All Might stares down at Izuku and gives him a wide smile, "Don't worry yourself young Midoriya! Of course I would be happy to sign something for you! I was simply trying to remember if I had a meeting planned after class but I do not, so what did you want me to sign?."

Oh okay he doesn't feel so bad now, he takes off his backpack and swiftly grabs the comic along with a high quality black permanent marker. "Can you please sign this All Might sensei?!", he bows deeply and extends his arms with the items in his hands.

All Might gently grabs the offered items and Izuku begins to panic when he says nothing, so he looks up. What he sees is not what he was thinking he'd see, instead of an annoyed gaze All Might's face is…gentle and has a soft but genuine smile.

"My Boy… I haven't seen one of these in years ,and none this… pristine in condition. It reminds me of my heyday when I was at my best and when I had just reached what I considered my ultimate goal as the symbol of peace." The mountain of a man sighs with nostalgia and Izuku feels honored to see All Might being so …real and well, human. As strange as it is to say, Izuku realizes he struggles to see All Might as a person, he always saw him more as an ideal, the perfect hero to strive to become, or like he said a symbol of peace.

The sound of the marker rapidly squeaking signals that All Might is signing the comic case, "There we go, I even added a little extra All Might flare to it for you".

Izuku grabs the comic from All Might's hands, he signed it and added a little drawing of his 2 hair points above the signature along with a small doodle of himself flexing. It's amazing,"Thank you so much, I will treasure this for as long as I live!"

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8 days before the sports festival

It's been a week and now it's time to go to the beach with his friends, he's been waiting for them for a while but he did arrive earlier than planned. Izuku won't say anything but it feels nice knowing that people are able to enjoy the beach because of his hard work. He decides to check their group chat.

Pikapew: Im almost at the beach gonna set up sum stuff near entrance #2 like planned, where u guys at?

Sanic: I have arrived. I simply am having trouble finding the correct entrance.

Kirby: Almost there!

Tinman: I've been here for a while I put my big beach umbrella and a few towels out, I think I see you Kaminari.

IMAGE: blurry zoomed in kaminari in a loose open button up covered in watermelons with no undershirt and shorts looking confused holding a cooler with drinks.

Tinman: I saw him look at the phone but he still hasn't seen me

Tinman: Nevermind here he comes

Kaminari is now next to him on the beach and playfully punches his shoulder, "You could've called me".

Izuku has no response to that he just didn't think he'd have to but he decides to tease his friend, "nah watching you struggle was wayy to fun"

Kaminari dramatically gasps, "My dear friend Midoriya has betrayed me", he pretends to cry.

He knows that he's joking but it still makes him feel a little guilty, "sorry my bad".

"I'm messing with you bud it's cool, it's nice to see your confidence rising", Kaminari says.

Has his confidence gone up? He hadn't noticed, maybe he's just more comfortable around Kaminari now. Is that Iida? He has one blue shorts and a skin tight striped light blue and white shirt, in his left hand is a large bag with small foldable chairs and should also have sandwiches.

Uraraka is there too! He just didn't notice her at first since she was walking behind Iida. She has a very oversized shirt on that reaches to her thighs and has a bag with small toy shovels, buckets and sunscreen.

Uraraka makes eye contact and jogs up to them ahead of Iida, "Hey guys! I ran into Iida on my way he was at entrance 3 so I pointed him in the right direction. Oh here put on sunscreen before we forget!", she hands it to Kaminari.

By the time she finishes talking Iida has also joined up with them, "I did get a bit turned around but thankfully Uraraka was able to help me, I am going to set up the chairs by your umbrella Midoriya… Is it the All Might themed one?".

Izuku internally cringes; he bought that beach umbrella when he saw it a few years ago, but he never thought he'd have friends that would see it, "Yeah that's it".

Iida nods and makes his way over as Kaminari struggles to put sunscreen on the small of his back. "Uh Kaminari I can get that for you if you want".

"That's a good idea, thanks Midoriya", he gives the sunscreen to him.

Izuku quickly applies the sunscreen to the areas Kaminari wasn't able to reach on his back, there's a quiet ruffling behind him but he assumes it's just the wind pushing a bag or something.

"Hey Deku, would you mind getting my back too? You already have the sunscreen and you did it pretty well to Kaminari", Uraraka asks Izuku, the noise must've been her taking off her oversized shirt because now she is in a soft pink bikini.

Izuku is and always has been respectful of the opposite sex and his eyes never stray where they shouldn't go whenever he is around them. Then there's the fact that he hasn't had much experience speaking to them in general because of his status as a quirkless loner in elementary and middle school.

Needless to say, speaking to girls in general can be a challenge, even if he knows them, but he is still a teenage boy so when he sees Uraraka this close to him this suddenly in that outfit, he freezes in place.

It takes an embarrassing amount of willpower to stop himself from covering his eyes with his hands and it isn't until Kaminari subtly nudges him with his foot that he snaps out of his current state.

"Y-Yeah I can do that", Izuku manages to squeak out.

"Thank you!", she turns around, "just get my inner back I can get my sides myself".

Izuku squirts some sunscreen on his right hand then sets down the bottle before rubbing his hands together to evenly coat his hands. The teen then places his hands on Urarakas back and begins to spread the lotion.

Don't say or do anything stupid just apply the cream, just apply the cream, just apply the cream.

After what feels like the longest handful of seconds in his life he finishes his task, "T-That should be everywhere you can't reach yourself".

"Thanks Deku! I'm going to go over there with Iida now, don't take too long guys!", she indeed does make her way over to Iida, leaving Kaminari and Izuku behind.

Kaminari wraps his arm around Izuku and begins to lead him towards the beach, "Man you are NOT good at keeping your cool with girls huh?"

Izuku's cheeks burn red, "I don't wanna talk about it" he mutters.

Kaminari laughs at his friend's embarrassment, "Don't worry I tease you… much. Anyway let's just have fun today, we've been talking about this for a week now and I remember you betting me 2000 yen that you could build a better sandcastle than me"

Once Izuku and Kaminari meet up with the others on the beach they see Iida applying a special ointment to his leg mufflers to protect them from the saltwater. According to Iida he could clean them afterwards but it's much easier to just apply the cream beforehand, Izuku rambles for a short while in curiosity but thankfully no one seems to mind.

In the water Kaminari chases Izuku joking that he will shock all the water once he gets near with Iida chasing behind him attempting to stop him since he could hurt Izuku and quirk use in public is technically illegal. What he doesn't notice is Uraraka a few feet away using her quirk to make herself float in the air in order to cannonball into the water.

Once Kaminari saw this he obviously begged Uraraka to do the same to him and by the time they got out of the water all of them, even Iida surprisingly, had cannonballed into the water at least one time.

Another fun development was Kaminari getting stung by a jellyfish which had them all panicking until Iida informed them that the jellyfish that stung him was harmless unless you had an allergy against them. The experience did end with them outside of the water for the remainder of the day though.

The next thing they did was eat the sandwiches with drinks, the sandwiches were pretty good and Iida got bashful when they all gave him compliments on them.

With bellies full they decide that all of them would have a sand castle contest then vote for the best, they can't vote for their own obviously. Izuku and Kaminari came to the agreement that whoever places higher in their contest wins the bet.

Izuku chooses to build his sandcastle in the form of Yuuei, so four rectangular prisms of 2 feet with small horizontal prisms in the middle of each connecting them. He realizes it's a pretty basic design so he makes sure to add a lot of detail, using sticks to add shapes and detail the windows, and spending an alarming amount of time on the connecting hallways. Midoriya also made sure to add the Yuuei barrier ½ foot tall around it and miniature trees, and by the time he's done he is proud of what he made.

He looks over to Kaminari and his is well… it's certainly a sandcastle, it's almost entirely just bucket shaped hills stacked atop each other. He must've just been going for height because it is around 3 ½ feet tall but since he made it so haphazardly one side breaks up and slides off. He can probably fix that.

Iidas is what you imagine when you picture a sand castle, 1 large semi detailed mound around 1 ½ feet tall with two 2 foot tall watch towers, one on each side. There is also a moat complete with water he dug around the castle with a drawbridge made of a shovel. A cool thing he notices are multiple seashells acting as decoration along the moat.

Uraraka's sandcastle is what you picture when you think of a medieval castle, he doesn't know what he was expecting but not this. A large barrier measuring 1 foot similar to his is surrounding the main castle,and each corner of the barrier has a tower that is half a foot taller than the barrier. The castle itself has a base of a 1 1/2 foot tall mound with another smaller mound atop of it making the total height 2 ft, like the barrier it has towers of 2 ft on each side of the square shaped mound. Each point of the castle has a leaf for a flag with the center part having an extra large leaf, those along with the lines added with what he assumes was a stick give it a brick like appearance.

A few minutes pass then they all take a look at the completed works and decide Urarakas is the clear winner with Iida and Midoriya tying and Kaminari placing last. The girl is very proud of her work so she takes a picture of it with her flip phone and once they see her doing so the boys do the same.

The day ends with them all agreeing they are tired and ready to go their separate ways so after gathering their belongings and throwing away any trash they go home. Because of all the fun he's had today along with the fact he was in the sun for a long time, it didn't take long at all for him to fall asleep.

…

…

…

"He's had enough time. And after today he is in good enough spirits to handle meeting us", Prophet says firmly.

"Yeah lets do it today, I don't know how much longer we can hide our thoughts and memories from him", Alcatraz agrees.

…

…

It's been a while since he's had nightmares which he hadn't questioned but was immensely grateful for, the last one he had was from the day before the USJ. It feels almost like a silver lining, for the small price of getting beat so bad the suit was forced to keep him alive he no longer had nightmares when he slept.

But it looks like his luck has run out, he is confident he's dreaming right now but this isn't a memory he's experienced before, and he's still in his own body. He is standing up and feels glued to the floor, he looks around, there are beds along the 2 walls on his left and right, the floor is solid gray, in front of him is a wall with no beds and 2 entrances on the left and right side of the wall. He's in a military boot camp barrack.

Two men walk into the room in front of Izuku, both of them seem to be 6 feet (183 cm), one is a dark skinned, bald, African American, and the other seems to be lightly tanned hispanic with dark brown hair.

Both of them stand tall in front of him with their hands behind their back, the both of them are also in American military uniform, the bald man is the first to speak, "Hello Izuku".

Hearing his name sets off alarms in his head, this isn't a memory and it sure as hell is no normal dream.

"You're right, this isn't a dream, it's a… lets just call it a briefing", the other man says.

He didn't say that, can they hear his thoughts? Their voices sound familiar though, are they… Prophet and Alcatraz? Of course they are, he should've known the instant he saw them, why did it take him this long to figure that out? Maybe because he's actually seeing them instead of just hearing their voices? He's panicking right now isn't he?

"You being able to hear us is actually the reason you are meeting us, and just assume we know whatever you are thinking to make this easier", Alcatraz notes.

Izuku does his best to remain calm, he can't let his nerves affect his thinking this is too important to mess anything up, "How-how are you two talking to me, you're both dead".

Prophet decides to answer this question, "The nanosuit is the greatest tactical combat machine the world has ever known, it is so evolved and powerful that in order for a human to properly utilize it to the fullest the nanosuit… assimilates the users memories and body to increase efficiency." He stops speaking, Izuku assumes so he can think about what he just said.

So that explains the memories he's been seeing and the episodes he's been having like during the entrance exam and that time he fell asleep in class, it's the memories and trauma of the past users. But how does that explain their presence?

"The memories of the host along with their data on how they react to stimuli such as in combat or conversation, all combine to create a file of the user, or in other words the nanosuit creates a perfect copy of the mind and personality of the user and stores it." Prophet finishes his explanation.

Izuku somehow feels his blood run cold,"...So then you two are almost like… ghosts, minds without bodies haunting the suit", he whispers.

"That's one way to phrase it", Alcatraz agrees.

Izuku thought he would be more nervous than he is, but after all the nightmares and panic attacks, finally learning the cause of them thankfully just put him at ease.

"But why reveal yourselves now? Why not when I first used the nanosuit?", he questions

"We weren't ever going to reveal ourselves, we wanted to let you live your own life with us only showing you memories to assist you with the nanosuit…but we weren't expecting you to be able to hear our voices, first when we showed you memories and recently when you were just going through your day" Prophet begins.

"If we did nothing we worried you would hear more and more of our voices and go crazy, so we had to reveal ourselves.", Alcatraz finishes.

Izuku hears what they said and he understands it, but one part of it is only making him angry, the fear, the panic, the nightmares were because of them?!. "You thought, showing me those memories… WOULD HELP ME!? Sleepless nights! Full body panic attacks! Constant paranoia!"

Alcatraz has the decency to look ashamed while Prophet simply stares, "Not all the memories and dreams were us, most of them weren't, the suit is amazing yes, but you are the 3rd operator so as it grows and continues to merge with you there will be some… issues".

Izuku wants to scream more but he for whatever reason trusts what Alcatraz says, but now that he finally has the chance to speak to them he does have some questions.

"From the memories I've seen it looks like Prophet had the suit first then you, but it also looks like Prophet was the last one in the suit? How?"

Alcatraz hesitates but explains, " I was given the Nanosuit by Prophet, I think you've seen that memory already, and I was the one to stop the Manhattan virus and the Ceph invasion, but doing so caused my mind to become so corrupted by the Ceph I was essentially a vegetable". He seems to think before speaking more, "Once the nanosuit deemed my consciousness unsuitable it instead chose the saved Prophet copy and had that pilot the suit, it wasn't until years later that it was able to repair my file"

That's… tragic, he had his body stolen from him after saving the city, probably even the world, wait, can… can that happen to him.

"Technically yes it could, but if you don't want that we can remain neutral and well, let you die", Alcatraz confirms his thoughts.

Prophet adds more information, "Right now we are preventing the nanosuit from both properly scanning your memories and personality and stopping it from fully merging with your brain since we wanted to give you the choice to decide if you wanted it to have access to that. However if you choose to allow it all your reflexes and reaction times will be heavily increased since it will increase the suits symbiosis."

That's a lot to think about.

Prophet steps forward to get his attention once more before speaking, "We will remain mostly silent in your life only speaking to offer advice or insight but you can speak to us whenever, all you have to do is think what you want to say, but before you wake up there are a few final things we must tell you."

Alcatraz stays silent, allowing Prophet to take charge of the news, "After healing all of your injuries the nanosuit was able to further grow and merge with you, so now everything has been amped by a noticeable amount. You can take more damage and hit harder, cloak will last longer and speed is also increased along with total energy."

Alcatraz chirps in, "Imagine before you had the incomplete nanosuit 1.0 now you have the complete edition plus a little extra".

The bald man continues, "And the final news is this, until now we have only influenced you both in life and battle"

At Izuku's confused expression Alcatraz decides to elaborate, "What did you think you knew how to fight on your own back during the invasion? If we didn't do anything you would've gotten your ass handed to you since your only combat knowledge is to wildly swing like a brute."

Izuku doesn't argue with that, he knows it's true.

The eldest in the room speaks more, "But because we have been influencing you your combat speed is greatly reduced, so if you agree, we can train you while you sleep, whatever you learn should stick with you even when you wake".

Izuku doesn't know what to say, it sounds like an amazing idea but, he doesn't know how comfortable he is with these… ghosts. So the idea of training with them when they are technically unwanted stowaways is not the most appealing.

"We understand that, but think on it okay? Looks like you are waking up, let us know if you want to take us up on our offer tonight huh?", Alcatraz requests as the room fades away and Izuku is brought back to consciousness.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

6 days before the sports festival

The start of another school week is thankfully uneventful, his friends have no plans for another get together since they all want to increase their attention on the sports festival by doubling down on their training. This is something Izuku agrees with, everyone wants to win obviously, Uraraka herself very clearly said how hard she was going to try to win.

Another thing the sports festival affects is their classes, as they have been rather tame consisting mainly of theory or simple training exercises.

His own training has been very… insightful, he spent all day yesterday debating the offer he was given and eventually he figured that they sacrificed their body and life, even if they are 'ghosts' now, to save his life so he trusts that they will do their best to teach him.

So last night was the most barebones basics, they showed him how to stand when defending from attacks, how to throw simple punches, and kicks and how to evade and block attacks with minimal movement. Those were the things they were going to spend the week covering because no matter what fighting style you develop you need a solid foundation, their words. It wasn't much due to his total lack of experience he struggled to get a grasp on the teachings, but he has the drive to continue learning. And while he knows it doesn't make any sense he swears he feels sore, he did some light training when he woke up to see if what he learned while sleeping stuck, and it did, but it feels strange to feel this sore.

Night comes later than usual, or maybe it just feels that way since now he is waiting for it to arrive. After a short meal with his mother along with casual conversation he heads to bed early, while it is strange to be training in his sleep he cannot deny it seems to be having an effect.

…

…

…

This night and last training night, the 'dreams' took place in what seems to be a basic boxing gym with a ring in the center, duffel bags hanging from the ceiling, some padded pillars, and training dummies.

"You telegraph your attacks too much, you create so much wasted movement that anyone would be able to evade your hits, I said it before but if we had not influenced you during your fights you would've been heavily out classed.", Prophet scolds.

Alcatraz steps forward, "maybe it'll help if we, well, if we beat it into him", he theorizes.

Izuku doesn't like the sound of that.

Prophet thinks for a moment, "Good idea, do you want to spar with him or do I?".

"It was my idea so I'll do it", Alcatraz steps into the boxing ring with gloves somehow already on his hands, "Come on kid let's do this".

Izuku looks around but fails to find any gloves.

"Don't worry, you wont need gloves", his sparring partner says with confidence.

Prophet remains outside the ring and watches Midoriya enter the ring with the other past nanosuit operator.

Even though he knows this is all in his mind, it still feels like reality so he isn't able to stop the nerves building in his stomach.

"Okay Midoriya so the point of this is to help you stop projecting your attacks, so pretty much every time I see you doing something incorrectly or ineffectively I am going to let you know just where you messed up, hopefully it works faster than just having you practice by yourself since we're a bit crunched for time until the festival and that's our current goal.", the man prepares for the match, " Your win condition is to land 5 successful hits on me, or until you can't continue ready?"

"Yes"

For the first seconds of the match neither fighter moves, but then Alcatraz motions to Izuku to hurry, so he rushes forward. He needs to be quick so his punch can't be dodged, Izuku winds his right fist back and aims for his opponents chest, he steps closer and sends his fist flying with full force when. BAM

Izuku steps back and blinks hard, that blow was directly to his face and it left him dazed.

"Again"

Izuku's willpower remained strong and he goes in for another try, this time a left straight punch aimed for his ribs and- BAM BAM

Again Izuku backs up to regain his composure, those hits landed on his cheek and stomach, and he swears that they will bruise.

Izuku knows if this wasn't a spar he would lose immediately, and the only reason he is still standing now is because they want him to learn not get beat. They said his attacks are too telegraphed and has too much wasted movement, so this time he will avoid winding up his punch and dash left before attacking.

He enacts his plan and eyes his target, the left pectoral, he dashes forward, then left, then throws his fist forward, this time he isn't hit by a fist before he can land his hit, but instead his fist never makes contact.

His eyes dart to the right where Alcatraz has maneuvered to dodge his attack, he glances at his fist to prepare to evade or block or something when he instead feels a heavy blow to his calf and he collapses like a game of jenga.

"You did better in not making your attack obvious and bonus points for the dash before you threw that attack, but you still gave away your intentions, do you know how?", Alcatraz questions while kneeling down.

Izuku rubs his leg, it's cramped from the hit and he still doest feel ready to stand, "I.. I don't know, it's not like I'm shouting my attacks or anything".

Alcatraz turns to Prophet who reveals the cause of his failure, "You stare HARD at where you are going to hit, less experienced opponents won't notice but to us and other more knowledgeable fighters it's a dead giveaway."

…

The pattern of attempting an attack and getting knocked down continues for a while before Izuku can feel his body starting to wake up, but before he does he has a question he'd like to ask. "Can either of you explain why I felt sore this morning? I mean it's not like this really happened."

By now Izuku and Alcatraz have stopped sparring and are sitting on a bench near the ring, Prophet is sitting across from them and speaks, "Because the nanosuit is currently equipped and projects whatever you experience here to your body with compressions and some mild electrical signals, it wont leave any bruises but it helps what you learn here stick."

That is not what he expected, he was confident it was all in his head but no it was real. Hopefully he isn't too sore the following day.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

2 days before the sports festival

So Izuku did in fact feel very sore after the beating, er lessons he received so they didn't have any physical training the night after that so he could rest, just basic forms again since they said apparently overtraining will only hurt him in the long run.

Tonight is the last day of training so he won't be sore during the festival and it is spent with Izuku sparring with Prophet this time so he could get a broader range of experience, but Izuku requests to stop early because he wants to ask some questions.

Now they sit on the benches again and Izuku begins to speak his mind, "From what I've gathered the nanosuit is military in origin, probably American, so why were you in Japan, and why is the nanosuit not in American custody? There's so much I don't know so please, just tell me everything I need to know."

The room is silent until Prophet begins to respond and his eyes look… distant, "It's a long story but I'll try to keep it simple. The Nanosuit program was technically an American project, but one buried in secrecy and drowned in conspiracy. At first there were 5 nanosuit operators, not counting the korean knockoffs, there was Psycho, Nomad, Aztec, Jester, and myself, but on the mission where we first encountered the Ceph they all died, except for Psycho."

So that's who Psycho is, those other names are new though, and there are korean suits too, what happened to those?

Prophet continues his story, "after that mission I learned that the man in charge, Hargreave, just used us as test subjects, he wanted to know how the suit would react with Ceph technology. When I heard that I went rogue, I stole the Nanosuit 2.0 and went around the globe, searching for the Ceph and when I finally found the location of their ships I had to go back with what I found, but I went late brother, way too late, way to fucked up, and right in the middle of invasion fucking central. I… No, Lawrence Barnes, the original 'Prophet', got infected with the Manhattan virus and was unable to continue to fight. So when he found James Rodriguez callsign 'Alcatraz', he gave him the nanosuit, but in order for the transfer to be a success he had to end his connection with the suit, by ending his own life."

Izuku turns to Alcatrz, his face is unusually stern, guess even a copy of his memories has trouble hearing about the past.

Prophet still isn't done speaking, "As Alcatraz told you before he was able to stop the invasion but his mind was destroyed in the process, so the nanosuit replaced his consciousness with mine, after that I went back to tracking the Ceph until one day in Siberia I was ambushed and defeated by C.E.L.L who then imprisoned me in a stasis chamber for twenty years, the only positive is that they amped the suit with alien tech so that when they removed the suit it would be improved, heh, but Psycho was able to rescue me. After that we both worked together to take down C.E.L.L's control of all power but in the process awoke the alpha Ceph, so I killed it, then I spent the next centuries finding all traces of the nanosuit and Ceph technology and destroying it, that's why you couldn't find much of anything on it"

That explains what happened to the korean suits and any info he looked for, and by the sounds of it the nanosuit was much more powerful back then than it is now, why is that?

"It's because you're the third user, and the way we transferred the suit to you was not ideal. You didn't so much as wear the suit like we initially did, the suit merged with you and is continuing to do so, and until it completes it you won't have access to the full potential of the suit, right now I'd say you are around halfway more or less.", Alcatraz answers the unspoken question.

Izuku still isn't used to them knowing his thoughts but there's something he wants to ask, it doesn't really apply anymore but he still wants to - needs to know, "Do you two think someone quirkless can be a hero?"

The two give him a look of…sympathy?

Alcatraz breaks the silence, "When I joined the marines the world was going to shit, I joined to try and wanted to help maintain order where I could, and even with my shit life and fear of water I managed to join force recon and even placed 3rd in the open water trails, and I did all that before the nanosuit, so if I can do that before even getting the nanosuit, why can't you be a hero- I mean why can't someone be a hero without a quirk?"

Izuku's face scrunches, he gets what Alcatraz is trying to say but being a hero and being in the military isn't exactly the same, but before he has the chance to say anything Alcatraz looks up at him angrily.

"Not the same huh? You think my life… and being a marine was easy?", Alcatraz looks Izuku in the eye and he is flooded with memories, and emotions.

First thing he sees is a small girl with brown hair and green eyes, his sister - he has to protect her, there is a scream in the other room, it's his mom and she's in the middle of another one of her dementia episodes, his body shakes in terror but he stays strong for his sister.

Now he's in a barracks and stands alongside other recruits, he is full of pure nerves but also excitement. Scene changes and now he's jogging, so much jogging, his legs feel like jelly and he doesnt think he can keep going, but somehow he does. Now he is assembling and reassembling a gun, his fingers slip and pinch and he messes up more than once, but then he's done and it feels good. Water everywhere as he swims with his lungs burning, then being held under waves of crashing water, but he refuses to give in and his willpower keeps him in the game. Pushups until his arms are lead, strict schedules with almost no time to think, deployments to control riots time and time again, escaping a burning submarine underwater before resurfacing to watch his teammates die.

Then it's over and he is back with Alcatraz and Prophet, he saw so much and what he just saw is only a small piece of his life, and even though this is just a dream he can feel tears on his face.

"If I can do that with no quirk, you can be a hero without one too", Alcatraz repeats, this time much calmer.

Izuku wipes his eyes, and Prophet speaks, "I will answer your question with my own. I believe that being a good soldier comes down to one thing… one single question, what are you prepared to sacrifice?". He takes a breath, "When they came to me with the nanosuit I sacrificed Lawrence Barnes, the man I was to, become Prophet. When my own flesh and blood held me back I sacrificed that too, replaced it… like a spare part… victory costs, everytime you pay a little more." He turns to Midoriya, "So what are you prepared to sacrifice?"

Izuku thinks, when it comes to himself, he remembers thinking he would give anything to be a hero, to save people, and even if he broke his body saving Kacchan he'd do it again. So with confidence in his eyes, he answers, "Everything".

Prophet gains a light smile, "Good answer, but take my- our advice", he stands and places a hand on Izuku's shoulder, "Don't sacrifice your humanity".

Izuku feels himself begin to wake again, and he knows he will be thinking of the conversations of tonight for a long time. The sports festival draws near, and he is ready.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

This chapter was the hardest to write honestly because the dialogue between Izuku, Prophet, and Alcatraz had to explain so much and I hope I was able to properly write all the information in a way that makes sense, honestly I wouldn't be surprised if i messed up wording or something in a sentence here or there or just look back at this chapter and not like how I wrote it so I might edit them in the future.

As for Izukus bad fighting technique just look at the anime I mean its outright stated by overhaul that his attacks are too linear and easy to see coming, so the reason he actually knew some fighting (actually blocking, evading and quick attacks) was because of Prophets and Alcatraz's subconscious help.

Prophet's story of the history of the nanosuit (as well as the history of the games honestly since they're pretty much one and the same) had inspiration and a sentence from the Prophets journey cutscene. Plus his 'answer' to Izuku's question is pretty much the crysis 3 intro.

Again sorry for the delay but I hope you enjoyed it! I'll see you again hopefully sooner than later.