On the first day of the new year, Izuku set off on his winter break work study. He gathered his things, said goodbye to his mother once again, not without an unreasonable amount of tears, and met up with All Might at noon. The two of them sat in his old, beaten up truck, and drove off into the world outside school, which Izuku would be experiencing for the first time since getting his provisional hero licence. He wouldn't lie to himself — he was nervous, ready for a chance to prove he'd earned the licence. He was afraid of getting too excited at the same time, and going too far and hurting himself again, as Aizawa had helpfully pointed out he had a tendency to do. It didn't help that Aizawa was the one in charge of him this week, as All Might would be there in his role as a hero, or former hero, and not as his teacher. Aizawa was the hero he was employed by, technically, which was strange to Izuku. He'd be getting paid by Aizawa, though he didn't know if that came out of Aizawa's own pocket or if the Commission gave him the means to support having an employee. Izuku was thinking of refusing money anyway, at least this time, since he didn't want to take money from his teacher, especially when his teacher was still mad at him.
The drive to the location took a few hours from Musutafu. If Izuku remembered correctly, they'd be meeting up with Aizawa in a town called Nagiso, in Nagano. He'd gone to the trouble of looking up the town when he'd learned it was where they'd be going a few days prior, and it turned out that the town had been founded in the middle of the twentieth century, before the Dawn of Quirks, a little over two hundred years ago. A town that remained intact through the chaos of the era of emerging superpowers would surely be a sight to see, in addition to the fact that all the way back then it had been called one of the most beautiful towns in Japan. All in all, Izuku was excited. Getting to see a new place and do hero work tracking down these stray Nomu? That was an offer he couldn't refuse, even if he'd gone out of his way to get that offer in the first place. He was only disappointed that his friends couldn't come with him. Izuku knew why, of course — even if his close friends knew about One for All and All for One, the information that there were monsters that could stalemate All Might just wandering around would cause mass panic if allowed to spread, so keeping the amount of people in the know as small as possible was a priority — but still, doing this with his teachers wouldn't be nearly as fun as if his friends had been allowed to tag along.
Izuku wasn't going to complain, though, not when Aizawa was watching him for any sign that he could lose control of his emotions and do something reckless, and put himself or someone else in danger. Just like at camp. Izuku forced the memory to go away, and looked out the window to see the winding countryside road leading into a little town wedged between hills and mountains. The route they'd driven had taken longer, but gave them a more direct entry into the town, and Izuku could see it all. They drove in from the south, and Izuku got a phenomenal view of the hills and mountains that surrounded Nagiso from all sides as they got closer to the central area of the town. Izuku had always been a city kid, never really left Musutafu, let alone Shizuoka. Now he was out in Nagano, surrounded by mountains, and away from the overwhelming mass of heroes that kept the cities more or less safe to live. He wondered what it would be like to spend time in a place where he and Aizawa were the only heroes around, since from what he could tell, Nagiso had no active heroes stationed there. Izuku supposed that there was no time like the present to find out, as All Might parked at an inn.
The inn looked like old Japanese style architecture, something Sero would probably be interested in, as the class had collectively been shocked to learn. Izuku didn't know a whole lot about Sero, but he seemed to love traditional Japanese culture. He watched a lot of old anime, and if Izuku named a niche genre of manga that nobody else in their class had ever heard of before, Sero could likely give him a top ten list of recommendations. Izuku guessed that the inn was one of the buildings that had been around since the pre-Quirk era of Japan, since the design of the place leaned into that style heavily. Along with their hero system, Japan ended up adopting a lot of western ideas about style and design, and that extended to architecture, too, at least in the big cities, like Tokyo, Fukuoka and Osaka. He'd heard Sero lamenting that to anyone who would listen during late night study sessions for their modern hero art history classes with Midnight. Izuku took in the cold, windy town, the mountain air stinging his skin, and went back on his insistence that he didn't need a scarf.
Another car pulled up next to All Might's, and Aizawa climbed out. He breathed into his hands for a moment, making a show of it, even though he had his black jumpsuit and capture scarf on, so he had to be warmer than any of them. Izuku was shocked out of his irritation by two more people standing up from within the second car, and even more surprised to find that he already knew one of them. Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi greeted Izuku with a nod, and All Might with a wave and a smile. Izuku had met the man once, back during his internship with Aizawa after the sports festival. Tsukauchi had taken some villains that Izuku and Aizawa had captured, a couple of muggers, off their hands during the week that Izuku had spent doing real hero stuff in the past, so he thought it was kind of like destiny that they'd meet again now, when that situation repeated itself. Izuku didn't know the other man that got out of the car, short and older than the others. He wore a hero costume, a yellow and white jumpsuit with big, clunky boots and a short cape. The old hero walked with a cane, something Izuku hadn't seen a hero do before, which made him wonder if he'd end up like that one day if he never mastered One for All. Izuku suddenly got a strange pang of nostalgia seeing the elderly man, and could've sworn that he knew this hero's name, but before he could remind himself that he'd never met this man before, he was talking.
"Gran Torino," Izuku said, purely reflexively. He shut his mouth quickly, meeting the elderly hero's eyes in a panic. "All Might has talked about you a few times, but I never thought I'd meet you in person!" he quickly said, mostly to cover for how he knew the name of this stranger without being introduced, but also because he really didn't think he'd meet one of the heroes who trained All Might. The man was so little, though; how'd he train All Might?
"And you must be Izuku Midoriya. You don't look like much. I guess that's how you get 'em, eh?" the old man said, confirming that Izuku's strange intuitive guess was correct. He laughed harshly, and began talking to All Might, talking about how sickly the retired hero looked and how he didn't train the Symbol of Peace just for him to end up a walking skeleton.
Izuku let the conversation move on from himself and began wondering how he could've possibly known who he was talking to without being told. He suddenly remembered something from months ago, when he'd been face to face with Tenko Shimura, then known as Tomura Shigaraki, for the first time. They'd met before that time in the bar when Izuku had been kidnapped, but the villain had been wearing his strange hand-mask thing, but in the bar, the mask had come off for the first time, and One for All itself had used Nana Shimura's voice — the voice of Tenko's grandmother — to talk to Izuku. He'd known Tenko's name, even when Nana had never met Tenko in her life. The power they shared, One for All itself, had whispered in his ear. This was that. He'd just known Gran Torino, like Nana had spoken through him, because of course she would — they'd been friends, or so he'd heard, though partners was the more common term All Might would use when talking about his masters' relationship. Izuku was looking at the second of two people other than himself who'd fought against All for One and lived. That realisation stunned Izuku into silence, and he settled for just listening as they headed inside to discuss business.
"So," All Might began as they sat around a private area. It was furnished with chairs, a table, and some tea had been set at the table before ahead of their arrival. Izuku felt out of place in his UA uniform, compared to the suits and costumes worn by the adults, but kept quiet. "What have you been able to learn about these supposed Nomu sightings, Tsukauchi?"
"Not much." Tsukauchi sighed. "There have been reports of monsters stalking people in the hills and mountains around here. They sound like Lower-Tier Nomu, from the files we got from the local police."
"Lower-Tier?" Aizawa asked.
Gran Torino hummed. "Some of those bioengineered humans are stronger than others. The one that Toshinori fought on UA grounds, the black-skinned one? That kind is the strongest. They're capable of completely overpowering even top ten heroes. The Upper-Tier Nomu are brute force incarnate." Izuku remembered facing the one Gran Torino was talking about. It had been on par with All Might's strength, and had been able to resist that same power for hundreds of blows. Izuku didn't think he could beat the Upper-Tier Nomu in a straight fight, despite his strength. "The colourful ones, the green, yellow, or blue Nomu, are generally weaker. They're strong fighters and could overpower most heroes outside the top ten, but their Quirks are more suited to defence or utility." Izuku had also had a run-in with one of these Nomu, now that he thought about it. During his first internship with Aizawa, a Nomu had attacked on the night they'd pulled off their raid of the local drug operation, and one of its Quirks had given it the power to absorb and release attacks back at its enemies. That one had been green. A shiver ran up Izuku's spine as he realised just how complex All for One's puppets were. No wonder they were braindead. "And the pale ones are the weakest kind we've encountered so far. They're like pawns, or distractions — they're meant to be destroyed. Some of the ones we recovered from Kamino don't even have multiple Quirks. It's like they're pre-Nomu. Poor suckers."
"Which ones are we dealing with here? The ones that made it onto the news, they'd be Lower-Tier Nomu. Do you know that there are any of the other tiers in this area?" All Might asked.
"We don't know. There's only video evidence of the pale Nomu so far, but anything could be lurking where the cameras can't see," Tsukauchi said.
"And where exactly were these Nomu spotted?" Aizawa asked.
"To the north. They were spotted crossing the countryside, wandering around the edge of town. They were circling, not getting further or closer. Like they were waiting for something," Gran Torino said.
"Or someone," All Might said gravely.
Izuku felt a spike of anxiety shoot up his spine, but fought to keep a neutral face. Was he talking about All for One, or someone else? Maybe it could be an associate of his that they didn't know about until now. Did All for One have associates? Izuku wondered how anyone could control the villainous underbelly for generations and end up with no alliances after going away for a few years. He had to have associates. The question remained of who those associates could be. As the room fell silent, Izuku felt bad for not contributing to the conversation, but every time Gran Torino or Tsukauchi shot him a look out of the corner of their eye, it made him wonder what business he had here in the first place. He couldn't think like that, though, he had to be confident that what he was doing was the right way to go about it. Izuku took a deep breath, and forced himself to look calm and collected.
"Do you think they came from here or were just passing through?" he asked. He wished his voice wouldn't shake.
"If they had popped up somewhere else, they would've been spotted moving across the country sooner. No, they originated here," Gran Torino said with a frown.
"If that's true, then it's highly suspect that a pack of Nomu has been dormant here for so long without anyone finding out about it, don't you think? Firstly, there has to be a place in town capable of storing dozens of hulking monstrosities. Secondly, it has to have gone undisturbed for months, potentially years. The first isn't impossible, but in conjunction with the second, I think it's improbable that such a thing could happen in such a small town. Either the local government would've inspected it, or some punk kids would've stumbled across it," Aizawa said.
"All for One is no stranger to bribery. It's how he built his original empire, aside from the Quirk trading," Gran Torino said.
"You think he could've paid off the people here?" All Might asked. He shot an incredulous look at his teacher. "I think it's even more unlikely that the powerful people in this town would align themselves with the greatest villain in history just because of some money. Small town folk have more dignity than that."
"Fine, then. What other way could he have hidden the Nomu, then?" Gran Torino asked.
"What about underground?" Izuku said as it came into his mind. With the adults in the room looking at him for more, he forced himself to elaborate. "His place in Kamino went deep underground, at least ten floors. Maybe he has a similar hideout here."
"That's a good idea," All Might said, smiling at Izuku warmly.
"Doesn't really narrow it down, though. If they came from above ground, that limits things to a building we can see from the air. If their origin is underground, then we have no way of knowing where to even start looking," Gran Torino said with a bitter tone. Izuku hoped he wasn't pointing that tone at him, but he couldn't read the older hero well enough to know.
"It's a start, at least," Tsukauchi sighed. "We can ask for construction permits and check for any irregularities. It's how we got him last time, so it might be beneficial this time."
Izuku was abruptly reminded that Tsukauchi had been part of the operation when All Might had first fought All for One. He was sitting next to the three man team that took down the strongest villain in the world. He definitely felt out of place. He sat and listened, taking all the details of the situation in and trying to think of any answer or solution that any of the others didn't add, but his areas of expertise were closer to on-the-spot thinking and the applications of Quirks, rather than methodical planning for hours on end. That was what ended up happening, though, as the five of them talked into the night about what exactly the scenario was. It got so late that they all agreed to sleep on it and start their search in the morning, though Izuku didn't know how he was supposed to sleep after hearing all that. They ate, and went their separate ways for sleep.
The bed he ended up with was comfortable, if a bit unforgiving when he shifted onto his side. It was a traditional futon, and Izuku guessed that was this inn's theme — traditional. His bed back home at the dorms was much more comfortable, though that was a bit unfair, as that had been the bed he'd been sleeping in since he was fourteen. Izuku felt bad for thinking of home and immediately imagining the dorms at UA, but figured it was only natural, since it was his primary living space.
Izuku couldn't sleep at first. Not because of the stiff bed, but because of the things he'd learned. He found himself with an odd curiosity about the Nomu, because they were the same. They both had multiple Quirks, though Izuku didn't go brain-dead due to his. His own natural Quirk, the power to hold multiple Quirks without that side-effect, protected him from it. He always felt weird thinking about his natural Quirk. He was never Quirkless, and that lie from Doctor Tsubasa had ruined his life for a decade. All for a favour. What a vile, twisted man one must be to break a child like that just because he owed someone. How many other kids had he hurt? All for One had mentioned stealing a Quirk from a little kid at Tsubasa's request, because the kid hadn't wanted it, so how many times had that happened? Dozens? Hundreds? Half the kids Izuku knew when he was four had cried and cried when Katsuki had gotten his Quirk, asking them why Santa didn't give them a new Quirk for Christmas. Would Tsubasa have offered the same deal to all of them, just to hide behind the paper thin excuse that he was helping those kids? Izuku had let it slip from his mind with all the revelations that had been handed to him on a silver platter that night, but Tsubasa was still out there somewhere, and he might be hurting more kids. He made a note in his head to talk to Katsuki about it when he got back to UA, since they'd both gone to Tsubasa's clinic as kids. Maybe he'd know something Izuku didn't.
He drifted off to sleep after all the thoughts in his head escaped. He closed his eyes, and was suddenly weightless. He floated through endless darkness, a smoky void forming around him. Izuku's body materialised in his UA uniform, and he looked around to see the throne room of One for All's mindspace put itself together around him, like a living organism regenerating before his eyes. A man appeared, tall and with a powerful frame, but with little muscle and a thin face — Yoichi Shigaraki, the first wielder of One for All. His shaggy white hair fell in front of his green eyes, the same eyes that Izuku saw in the mirror. Yoichi sat on the throne in the exact centre of the semicircle of seats, which all remained vacant. Izuku looked around, hoping that Sankitsuo, the third user of One for All, would appear, or even the second user whose name he'd never learned, but none of Izuku's other predecessors came to him in this dream. He turned back toward Yoichi and smiled, hesitating before finally greeting him.
"Hello … uncle," Izuku said, and cringed.
That was still weird. Since the tyrant All for One was Izuku's father — and grandfather, and mother, technically. Like he said, weird — that meant that Yoichi, the original user of One for All that lived and died well over a hundred years ago, was his uncle. And his great-uncle. Luckily, the man before him was only related to him in two ways, having been left out of his brother's meddling in genetics.
"Hello," Yoichi said with a smile. "Congratulations on getting to twenty percent. Things should start moving fast for you in that regard. I've heard it said that creating momentum is harder than maintaining it, so it may not take you all your time at UA to achieve safe usage of one hundred percent. You've created your own momentum in getting to twenty percent within ten months, so all you need to do now is maintain that, and you'll master One for All faster than you think."
"Great! Thanks for standing by me. Even though you don't really have a choice," Izuku said.
"Don't be so dramatic, nephew. If I, or any of the other vestiges of One for All, didn't want to support you, you'd know. In fact, I think you do already," Yoichi said. His smile vanished and he seemed frustrated about something, but Izuku couldn't tell what. He knew Yoichi was speaking of the second and third users when he mentioned Izuku knowing that they didn't like him, but there was something deeper at play.
"Was there a reason you appeared to me tonight, or did you just want to talk?" Izuku asked.
"Yes, there was a reason. The other vestiges don't feel it, but there's something strange about the town you've found yourself in. It's as if I remember it, but I don't. My brother has definitely touched this place. Be wary, Izuku," Yoichi said with a grim sort of certainty.
"Right. I'll make sure I'm careful. Who knows what he had hiding here? Apart from those Nomu," Izuku sighed. He figured that his strange, almost supernatural intuition regarding Gran Torino had come from One for All responding to the place, like it had recognised something but didn't know what, so had given him the closest answer it could think of.
"And what about the Nomu?" Yoichi asked, shooting Izuku a hesitant look that he thought he understood.
"I don't think they're a massive problem by themselves. After all, they're puppets, right? They need someone telling them to do things in order to be really dangerous. I can beat a Nomu in a fight, at least the pale and the colourful ones. It's the black ones, the Upper-Tiers I can't beat, and it's the puppet-master that I'm really worried about. Do you have any clue about who or what has caused these Nomu to wake up after all these months?" Izuku said.
"No. I'm sorry I can't tell you more than to be on your guard. I fear this reaction of mine to the town is but an omen of something larger to come. Something is not right here, and it's more than the Nomu," Yoichi said, his intense eyes locking onto Izuku's and stunning him into silence.
"Got it. I'll keep my eyes open," Izuku said, nodding.
"Good. I'm glad. Now, then — because that's all I really wanted to talk to you about tonight, how about we allow the others to join us?" Yoichi said, and waved his hand.
Seven other wispy forms appeared on each of the other thrones. To his left, Sankitsuo, with his grey hair pulled back by his bandana and his green jumpsuit, materialised out of vibrant red, pulsing energy, and to Yoichi's right, a stranger appeared in a flash of royal blue. To the right, Hikage Shinomori formed out of pale green mist, En Tayutai — hero name Smoke Eater — a shorter young man with black hair and narrow eyes, and the high collar of his maroon jacket covering his lower face, manifested out of mist the same colour as his Quirk, Smokescreen, sitting beside the half-formed, ghostly visage of All Might, sparkling like diamonds under the sun. To the left, appearing from orange smoke like the embers of a fire was Daigoro Banjo — hero name Lariat — a bald man with sharp eyes and a massive grin on his face, decorated with leather combat gear and goggles on his forehead. Beside him, from pinkish-red mist came Nana Shimura — hero name Hera — a beautiful, powerfully built woman with dark hair and a small mole in the same spot that her grandson, Tenko, bore one. The second and third looked down at the ground, resembling a cement floor, while the others acknowledged Izuku, giving him smiles in the cases of Daigoro and Nana, a silent wave from En, and a simple nod from Shinomori. Izuku smiled in return, happy to see everyone again. For some reason, speaking with all the vestiges at once like this was getting rarer, so Izuku decided to enjoy it while he could.
His focus was pulled, though, by the second user. The man sitting in the seat to Yoichi's right, he was actually there. He wasn't just a phantom Izuku could half-see out of the corner of his eye, or a mysterious non-entity within his dreams. The man had finally appeared to him, and Izuku couldn't look away. The second user reminded Izuku of Katsuki, for some reason. The spiky, reddish hair was styled in almost the same way, and he had similarly narrow red eyes. That was where the similarities ended, though, as the second wielder had a nasty scar on his face, starting from the left side of his forehead and forking out at the bridge of his nose, ending underneath both his eyes. He wore a green jumpsuit with black underclothes, both identical to Sankitsuo's, and massive white gauntlets, about the size of Katsuki's support items he called Grenadier Bracers, were affixed to his forearms. The front-facing barrels of the gauntlets were empty, which made Izuku think they had shot something out when the man used them in life. Maybe his Quirk worked with projectiles in some way? Izuku really didn't know, but that idea itched at some part of his brain.
"Hey, you guys showed up! Good to see!" Daigoro called out, shooting out a thin strand of his Quirk that latched itself onto Sankitsuo's shoulder like a hand from afar.
"I am glad you have changed your mind, master," Shinomori said.
"I haven't changed my mind about anything," Sankitsuo said, killing the other vestiges' moods. "I still think you are foolish and naive, child, so much so that manifesting my power would be disastrous. Do I need to remind the rest of you what he did with your powers against our immortal enemy, All for One?"
"He fought bravely. I don't see the problem with that," En said calmly.
"He fraternised with the devil's pawn, Tomura Shigaraki." Sankitsuo glared at En, who simply looked impassively back at him as if they were chatting over tea.
"Tenko Shimura. He was groomed," Nana said in a flat tone.
A frown came onto Izuku's face. Nana did not seem to regard Tenko with any kind of emotion, except perhaps regret, and that made sense to him. She'd never met him, and likely only felt disappointment in herself and her choices that led to Tenko becoming the villain Izuku had fought so hard against. That didn't stop him from feeling bad for all she'd gone through in equal measure, finding out that her family ended up being targeted by All for One despite the steps she took to ensure their safety. To do everything you can for your family, give your life, and still fail … Izuku wasn't sure how she had taken it so well.
"He was dangerous. And the boy wouldn't do what needs to be done to dangerous villains," Sankitsuo said, standing from his throne. "That is why my power will not manifest in him. He believes that he can save the world with thoughts and feelings, but he can't." The third user looked right at Izuku, then, and took a step toward him, making it obvious for the first time just how much taller than Izuku he was. "You got lucky, Izuku Midoriya, that Tomura Shigaraki ..." He looked at Nana pointedly. "... was groomed, and that he did listen. You won't always be so fortunate. The world is not a story with a happy ending, no matter what the first likes to believe. What will you do when you face a villain you can't negotiate with? What will happen when violence is the only answer? Would you maim a villain to save a life? Would you kill to survive? If you want my meta-ability, then you'll answer those questions, and you will answer them in a way that I deem satisfactory."
Izuku was stunned. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know if he could say anything after hearing all that. He thought about it for what felt like hours, past the time that he would normally wake up from his vestige dreams, but he remained locked in place, looking around at his predecessors, who had also been driven to silence. Nana was looking at him, as were Yoichi and the second user, oddly, but none of them spoke. Daigoro and En were looking at Sankitsuo, as if to reprimand him when they found their voices. Shinomori was simply looking down at the ground, his expression almost nostalgic, as if glad that his direct predecessor had returned in this way. Izuku wondered what their relationship was like, but focused on the questions he'd been asked.
"No," he said after a long silence. "That's what makes heroes different from villains. If there's even a fraction of a chance that my enemy can be convinced to stand down, or if they can be beaten with non-lethal force, then I have to try."
"And you'd try this with All for One himself?" Sankitsuo asked.
Izuku froze. He had no answer. He couldn't say that he'd try persuading All for One to back down, because that wouldn't work if he had a fool-proof, fifty step plan on how he could steal One for All from him at last, heal himself of his injuries and retire with all the heroes in the world ordered to leave him alone. He'd never go for it, so violence was an inevitability with that man. But would Izuku kill All for One? He didn't know if it was possible for the demon king to die, if he was being honest with himself. He'd been alive for well over a century, and had looked like any other thirty-something that one would pass on the street and not take any note of. He had to have stolen a Quirk somewhere along the line that halted ageing, and all the Upper-Tier Nomu Izuku had seen held insanely potent self-regeneration powers, but could all that keep a man from ever dying? Surely some niche combination of Quirks only possible within the stockpile of powers All for One had in him could do that. All for One could likely reshape the surface of Japan however he wished if he used enough Quirks of the right type to do so.
But that wasn't the question, was what his mind so helpfully whispered to him. The question wasn't if Izuku could kill All for One, it was whether or not he'd try. Izuku didn't answer, even in his own mind. He didn't want to know what his answer was, even if he decided to never tell a single soul. He feared it, knew that answering that question, even in the negative, would have implications, and consequences. He risked never manifesting Fa Jin if he answered in the negative, and he risked admitting, even if only to the vestiges of One for All, that he was capable of killing. With the truly massive amount of power he carried within him, Izuku didn't know whether or not he was capable of ending a life. He didn't want to attempt an answer, because once he made a decision, he couldn't take it back, even in his own mind.
He didn't say anything more to the vestiges that night, and woke up feeling worse than he had in months. The investigation into the Nomu began with all the enthusiasm of an elderly animal stumbling toward its final meal.