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The morning everyone awoke to an empty hospital room left a lot of confused students wondering where their dorm mother had wandered off to. Their answer to such a question was answered when the man who suffered debilitating injuries appeared in the hallway where all the teens he cared for slept the night prior.
"Breakfast is ready for you guys. Go and enjoy it before it gets cold."
Haru's tired expression hadn't escaped anybody. They all didn't let the chance to embrace their dorm mother escape them.
Everyone got up to tackle Nakamura with a hug that had their appreciation for such a gentle giant in their lives poured into it. It hurt to see the man they all saw as someone who cared for them still manage to pull himself out of his hospital bed just to feed the students on their days off. He just told the students that their caring natures were wasted on a person who would only care for them during their school days. Nobody bought the bullshit that came out of his mouth as they just cherished the man they all wanted to see safe and sound.
Time at UA felt different for the students attending school at such a strange time in history. Things were so wildly different to the norms that Nakamura found himself surrounded by an entourage of students at any given time of the day.
His work was assisted by those who he even thought were the most complacent of students. His mornings were met with several students from different dorms who wanted to assist him in his grueling daily work. Not a single soul complained in the work they helped him with as he attended to the needs of the students under his care.
Everything from laundry to cooking had someone assisting him as he slowly recovered from the injuries inflicted upon him by a parent who was scared for their child.
The man even worked to get the girl who's father assaulted him to resolve their differences. A family that could have potentially been broken by a frightened parent's actions found itself resolved with his constant guidance to make sure his students all were properly cared for.
No grudges were held after the man who beat Haru to near death tried to apologize after seeing the love the students had for their dorm mother. He just wanted the man to do his best to see to his daughter's needs over their own.
Some semblance of peace was realized after the kids who almost took Haru for granted finally stepped up to provide him with their support. Nobody approached the man with the diligent protection provided to him by those who wanted to provide their dorm mother with some semblance of security. They felt as though this was the least they could do for someone they all cared about.
One Month Later
Life reached another strange place for a lot of people in the UA grounds.
In fact, people were even able to start returning to their previous lives with designated areas of the cities being cleared of potential threats one by one. Although not perfect, life slowly started to become normal again for many of the citizens who thought that society was doomed to collapse. Everything finally seemed to be returning to a relatively peaceful state.
Still, there was still the issue of Bloodsoaked being at large. His presence could still be felt throughout the country.
One instance of his continued killings that occurred in the weeks following his brutal victory against Stars and Stripes took place in a hideout that housed a group of extremist sympathizers for the murderer's cause. Authorities had discovered the location of criminals who were trying to recruit others into their mission to start killing criminals like Bloodsoaked. They were operational for all of two days before he paid them a visit.
The news couldn't share the actual images of the crime scene itself; though the details were pretty much unnecessary for the public to imagine what the place looked like after Bloodsoaked was finished with the vigilante killers.
He clearly didn't want a following for what he did. These deaths were a message to those who were keen on trying to exercise their own version of justice. To Bloodsoaked, people like this were just better off dead.
UA Academy started to lower its defensive measures while the people in their walls were slowly able to reintegrate back into normal society. Some were still apprehensive about the world at large. This sentiment was gradually starting to lose its hold on the citizens with crime rates finally declining after what felt like forever. For the first time in what felt like forever, people felt hopeful that life could finally feel somewhat normal again.
Things weren't the same as they were before. Far from it, in fact.
People returned to their previous lives with a new perspective on how life would be from now on. Just because they were protected by those who offered their services didn't mean that they could be complacent with the safety they had. That sort of thinking had been what made things so horribly chaotic in the first place. Being cautious and aware of their daily lives served to keep everyone prepared for anything else that could come stomping out of the woodworks. This shift in mood gave some much needed perspective for those who once had their heads too far high in the clouds.
Expecting things to be perfect was unreasonable. There were still criminals and villains out in the world that had every intention of doing whatever it was they wanted without regard for others. Everyone felt themselves become more realistic with their expectations as even the heroes they once harshly criticized were now given the appropriate amount of respect for the work they do.
It wasn't perfect, but society started to see that maybe trying to achieve such a standard could do more harm rather than good.
While things were reaching a relative peace, the work being done within the walls of UA was anything but.
The students were training with all their might to become better heroes for the public's sake. They still had the self appointed mission to find the man known as Bloodsoaked and bring him to justice.
All Might regularly met up with his fellow heroes along with the ESD and police to find a way they could both locate and capture Bloodsoaked. These meetings would usually occur within the school's main campus conference room or the ESD main office branch. This meeting took place within the school, with ESD representatives and lead detectives present to discuss their options. What they were in desperate need of was a miracle with how little they had to go off of. On top of being a strong enough combatant that could take down All for One by himself, this serial killer was also in possession of a unique ability that could temporarily cancel out quirks. Learning about this previously unknown ability of Bloodsoaked made things go from complicated to downright overwhelming.
This was a killer who operated for over several decades in some of the most dangerous environments possible for any assassin to work in. Not only that, he successfully killed thousands of equally dangerous criminals and villains while doing so. As far as everyone could see; this individual was death itself.
"So far, this is what we know. Bloodsoaked has made his intentions clear that he will continue his work and return to the underground. His most recent killings tells us that he is still operating above ground, so we need to act sooner than later if we want any chance of catching him before he disappears once more. If we fail to do so, who knows how many more lives he will claim until we can catch up to him."
His experience as a hero gave All Might a good amount of perspective on the situation.
"We know that he possesses superhuman abilities while not being in possession of a quirk himself. This strange ability of his to negate quirks gave him more than enough of an edge in his fight against Stars and Stripes. We cannot be reckless and just send in heroes to fight this individual. If we want to stop him, we have to start considering all of our options."
A white board was brought out for All Might to use to begin writing down the data that needed to be reviewed by everyone. With a quick uncapping of his dry erase marker, the retired hero got to work with those intent on helping bring down this single criminal.
Placing a magnet on the board, the small icon that represented Bloodsoaked had a cartoonish looking gasmask on it with red drips drawn on the illustration. Bullet points were filled from the top of the board all the way down to the bottom with facts known about the killer. All the information had been a summarization from what All Might read up on in the dossier given to him by the police. It was nothing short of an encyclopedia filled to the brim with all the data collected over the years regarding all the murders he commited. He worked day and night to study the information in all its gruesome glory to put together the information he wanted to share with his fellow do gooders.
In the room were the still employed heroes with UA Academy, along with a few big named heroes who weren't technically employed by the school. Amongst the costumed heroes was the fully recovered Midnight. Her condition had her put into a suspended coma for several weeks as the medical specialists worked to reverse the damage to her brain after the nasty tumble she took during the Liberation Front war. She was just happy to be back up and about to help in bringing down this infamous criminal.
After writing down the last line of information, the rest of the heroes couldn't help but feel a little intimidated at all the lines written down with information on their target. They didn't even read any of it and it all looked like a complete college lecture with the sheer amount of writing alone.
Going over the information took a decent chunk of time for All Might to explain to his fellow heroes. Kamui Wood asked if the retired hero could condense all the writing, to which All Might disclosed that this was the condensed version of all the important information. Seems as though the hero couldn't just wing it in this case.
What wasn't speculation or guesswork still left a very concerning amount of information regarding Bloodsoaked.
Turns out that the guy favored using guns that weren't identifiable with any known makes already on the market. His weapons were all custom made for his use exclusively, which sort of made sense considering the amount of power his firearms possessed easily penetrated his targets and whatever else stood behind them when they got shot.
Guns alone didn't make this person the deadly force he was. The accuracy this killer demonstrated would put both Quickdraw and Lady Nagant to shame for how little this guy missed his shots.
Not only could this guy hit shots from over several kilometers away, he was skilled enough to track his targets whenever they even took shelter from Bloodsoaked. Amongst the more impossible shots he took, a target had his brain stem severed through two skyscrapers between him and the one who killed him. Distance wise, there were three kilometers worth of space based on the trajectory of the bullet and its point of origin.
The point of origin was a mountain range outside of the city limits where the guy got shot.
As expected, the additional information only placed more doubt within everyone over their chances of success.
Nobody survived his assassinations. Nobody.
Everyone he wanted dead, died. End of story. Every single incident involving Bloodsoaked had only a collective handful of survivors who weren't important enough to the killer to chase after. All of them were in some sort of psychiatric care with severe PTSD that left them babbling messes trapped in their own heads.
Again, nobody survived.
Worst of all; the killer had clear sadistic tendencies when he was left to his devices.
Bodies being torn to pieces with human remains painting the entirety of the interiors of the buildings the killings took place in were not things a typical contract killer did. He went above and beyond to exercise all his aggression on those he marked for death before marking the room itself with their blood. His namesake truly befit the one who would spill blood everywhere, including his own self.
Several crime scenes even had evidence that Bloodsoaked tortured his victims before killing them. Nothing about this man felt remotely human to those listening to all this information for the first time in such a comprehensive manner.
Even with all this horrific evidence being compiled into one place; one fact remained that made this all so much more difficult than anything else. It wasn't that he was powerful, nor was it the fact he was perhaps the deadliest vigilante killer in the history of the country; if not the world. One fact remained that made Bloodsoaked more difficult to catch than anything in the past.
He worked alone.
No henchmen or followers were associated with his activities. Someone this independent had all the flexibility in the world to move around as he chose to without having to worry about leaving behind a trail of any kind. Hell, when people started to sympathize and try to do what he did; these gung ho vigilante murderers found themselves as rotting corpses courtesy of the person they wanted to idolize. This individual actually went out of his way to remain in the dark.
The rest of the information lacked any sort of reasonable substance to assist the heroes and law enforcement in finding out where Bloodsoaked could be or how they could possibly capture him. Capturing a literal ghost felt easier than arresting this elusive monster.
"We still have some hope in capturing Bloodsoaked. His activities are still frequent enough to tell us he's working towards something. If we can connect these killings and find the connection between his victims, we may still have a shot here."
All Might being the one to inspire hope in this bleak situation felt appropriate for how long this man had been the world's mightiest hero. Without wasting anymore time, he and the others got to work in constructing an information map containing all of the masked murderer's past and current activities. Whatever little information they could scrounge up would be vital if they wanted to stop this man from doing anymore harm.
One person in the room knew better than all of his peers combined. Even the police and ESD were not as privy to the real depth to the truth as to what Bloodsoaked had planned for the future.
A lone hero who held a grim look on his face dreaded the future, though not in the same way the other heroes were. Hawk knew what his father had planned in the near and distant future for this country as well as the world. What was being misread as determination on the young man's face as determination had been his frustration and feelings of powerlessness to help his father from the fate he assigned himself. The man's future was that of misery; a path he resigned himself to for the sake of the world he wanted to pass on to those he cared for dearly. No matter what Keigo did to convince his dad, all the young man got in return was the same cursed response from his one true parent.
Everything that has come to pass was the results of several decades of planning coming to fruition. This was all part of the plan for Nakamura. It hurt so much more that in order to keep up appearances, Hawk now had to play nice with the people who were ignorant of the fact that the one they all wanted stopped was anything but that.
He bit his tongue and went along with the act to the best of his abilities. The memory of Haru apologizing to his son only served to twist the knife embedded in his heart.
After all he did. After all he's done to give him a better life. None of this felt fair.
For now, this was all Hawk could do for his dad. To play a role in the grand scheme that would bring the world of peace that Haru wanted for everyone.
Everyone except for himself. His place in that world would only drive Haru deeper into the oceans of blood he already inhabited.
One Week Later
Over half of the citizens who were taking shelter in safety camps all around the country were reintegrated into society. Things were looking up for so many people that the public itself rejoiced online and in real life with how relieved they all felt. Even those still holed up in academy shelters were starting to act more energetic in comparison to just several weeks ago.
Returning to their dorms, Izuku and the rest of his friends were all practically dropping dead flat on their faces onto the common's floor. Their training for the past few weeks had been pushing them all to become the beginning results of the heroes they would be in the future.
Kaminari had felt his legs give out before he just resigned to fall asleep on the ground where he fell. A few helpful souls did what they could to assist the less physically able in getting ready for bed that night.
It had been about nine thirty when they all made it back. Almost ten hours of straight training put them all through the ringer in terms of their current limits and beyond. Although they were so tired that they could feel the metal in their blood course through their own tongues; the class of 1-A felt more alive than ever before. All of them knew that as long as they had each other, the path ahead of them would be one that could be beaten. Nothing could stop them now.
As the other students all got to work getting out of their scuffed hero costumes, Izuku couldn't help but notice how Nakamura was again absent from sight. He still did all his matronly duties and even left the students a hot meal for when they returned. It just concerned him as to why Haru almost became a ghost to everyone at UA Academy.
Nobody knew where he went whenever he disappeared to god knows where. Their essentials were still being provided, though they all wanted to know where this elusive caretaker was during these trying times.
Pulling him out of his depressing train of thought, a soft grip with equally soft skin grasped Izuku's forearm. To his right, Ochaco had her eyes focused on Midoriya's worried expression over where his father figure was. She understood her lover's concern for the increasingly absent Nakamura. Izuku depended on their dorm mother for a great deal of guidance and now couldn't even see the man for most of their waking hours. Calling him didn't improve the young man's mood since Haru had suddenly developed a habit of letting his calls go to voicemail from out of nowhere.
He didn't even want to ask for any kind of advice. All Izuku wanted was to see his dad once in a while.
Everyone was a bit too exhausted to worry about anything else other than sleep. Even Izuku found the allure of a bed too tempting to be too hung up with Haru's lack of presence at the dorms. With his friends, all of class 1-A resigned themselves to the sweet embrace of sleep.
Wherever Nakamura was, Midoriya just wanted to know if he was alright. Hopefully nobody still held a grudge against Haru after what had happened when Izuku returned.
?
Most of Izuku's body had managed to find itself inside One for All once again. His nightwear even managed to follow him into the dream space this time around. A good thing considering now his actual genitals were now visible inside of this space.
Izuku was inside of the structure the mysterious tenth inheritor built for himself from within the quirk. Something told Izuku that the inheritor had something important to say based on the fact that the lighting changed into something completely different from the usual even overhead lighting. Rather than the panels of the ceiling giving light, there were these golden candelabras that weren't present before that gave just enough visible light for Izuku to see where he was going. At the end of the hallway he stood in were a set of ebony double doors that looked far larger than usual due to the fact Izuku couldn't see the top of the doorway with the limited lighting.
Pressing onward, Midoriya planted his hands on each door to enter the room he was being led into. Entering the space left the boy a bit confused at what he saw when the doors swung open.
In front of Midoriya was an almost blacked out room with only one source of light visible at the far end of the floor. All the lighting in One for All consisted of nothing but candelabras and a fireplace. Taking a moment to check what sat in front of the fireplace, a familiar figure seated upon the left chair with a side table with refreshments sat next to the equally large chair to the right. Neither of them said anything when Izuku started to approach the other chair.
Bare feet padded against the slick marble floors. About a minute passed before Midoriya finally made it to the empty seat meant for him due to the asinine size of the room. The edges of the room faded into darkness with how large it was in combination with the weak light source. In some ways, it reminded him of his father's own abode.
Him and the shadow said nothing to one another when the mysterious stranger poured both himself and Izuku a drink from the decanter sitting on the side table. He just left the drink on the table for Izuku to do with as he wished while the shadow downed the first glass in one shot before refilling his glass once more.
If Izuku didn't know any better, he could almost swear that the mysterious inheritor was acting hesitant in speaking with the current living inheritor. This individual never hesitated to speak to Midoriya in the past; and here he was now even offering a drink while downing their first glass in a split second. The second glass lasted longer as the shade now only took sips periodically.
Midoriya sat there patiently as the one who summoned him here looked to be struggling to find the right words. Their elbows were even propped on their knees as the ice in their glass clinked against the expensive looking glass.
"... Um-"
"You learned all you could from us. From here on out, it'll be mostly up to you to become the hero you want to be."
That was not what Izuku expected to hear from the faceless inheritor who was perhaps the most diligent teacher amongst all the other ones. From what he gathered after interacting with this personality for weeks on end, this should have been the happiest they were supposed to be with how much of a hardass they were with Midoriya. There was almost a tone of… concern, with their announcement of Izuku's training coming to a close. This shift in tone unnerved the young man more than filled him with confidence.
"... What?"
Just one question managed to find itself uttered from the completely stumped hero in training. Leaning back in their chair with the glass being finished while doing so, the shadow refilled their glass once more as they unveiled the intent of bringing in Izuku to this place.
"The others are under the impression that there are still things that they need to teach you about how to utilize your powers. You do that, and you'll be unlearning everything useful you've gained so far."
Izuku didn't know what to say to this information dump being hoisted onto him. At least it was now obvious to Midoriya that only these two knew of the meeting taking place here.
Still, the reason why the tenth inheritor was acting so suspicious didn't feel as though he was afraid of the other inheritors discovering their conversation. Their presence felt weak while he and this shade spoke in absolute private. Had this individual started acting nervous because of the others, it would have clashed with how brazenly honest he had been with his fellow One for All occupants in the past.
If it wasn't about the other inheritors, then there were only two other possibilities as to why this person would act so hesitantly.
"Is this about All for One?"
An answer of silence didn't feel as though Izuku made the right guess. There was only one other possibility on the table now regarding why this inheritor acted so out of character.
"Is it Bloodsoaked?"
The creaking sounds of fabric struggling to remain intact as the shade clenched his gloved hands all but confirmed Izuku's suspicions. It drove Midoriya up the wall with how little he knew about the serial murderer with whom he seemed to share a mysterious connection with. Whoever, or whatever, this unknown inheritor was; they had a connection with Bloodsoaked as he always dodged the question whenever that man was ever brought up in conversation. All this hesitation, the change in atmosphere; it finally seemed that Izuku was about to get some answers regarding who this masked murderer was and what they meant to Izuku.
"... Don't do it."
Hearing such a vulnerable version of this individual's voice left the hero who trained under this person speechless. It almost sounded as though he was begging Izuku to not pursue this country's greatest serial killer. Why now, of all times?
"This is me being honest. What I'm saying right now is nothing but the absolute truth."
Even without the ability to emote to the young man, Midoriya could see the absolute distress in the inheritor's face. A blank black space had more emotion in it than some of the most tragic villains he's faced in the past.
"Walk away from him. If you chase after him…"
Their right hand went up into a snapping position. Izuku already knew what was about to happen when the hand made the shape of the barely familiar pose.
"You'll come to regret that decision."
A loud snap doused the world in darkness. Midoriya knew he was sent back to the conscious world, though the words he heard remained with him like an etching that reached into the deeper layers of his soul. He didn't get any answers. Just a warning.
Heroes never back down from potential threats to innocent people. What Izuku felt wasn't a threat.
What he heard from this faceless avatar felt like a genuine warning with concerns for Midoriya's wellbeing. Izuku didn't know what the hell was going on anymore.