With the end of the festival come and pass Izuku came up to the staff break room and he collapsed on one of the couches.
Being the umpire was by no means his most physically demanding job by a long shot, however it was in the top twenty for emotionally draining experiences in his whole life.
It very much didn't help that he'd have another equally draining conversation right after, that was if the meeting didn't turn into some kind of pissing match or a straight up fight.
A wooden hand on his back made Izuku raise his face from where it was buried in the couch to see Haruki-San knelt by the couch.
"You doing okay Midoriya-Kun?" she asked and Izuku nodded.
"Just need a minute to feel human again after being steamrolled." Izuku answered.
Haruki-San laughed her wheezy chuckle and rubbed his hair.
"Oh, absolutely understand you there, my first festival as an umpire was horrid." Haruki-San empathized "And it really didn't help that I was still getting used to how much weaker my berries stems were back then." she jokingly added.
Izuku really didn't envy the support course from back in the day when Haruki-San first started as a teacher in U.A.
No offense to her but her berries were still rather powerful, and they probably had to fill in so many holes during the festival when she was the umpire.
Have caught his second wind Izuku moved to sit up and saw Haruki-San was offering him a bottle of soda.
"Thank you." he muttered, taking the bottle and very much appreciating having something to drink and help with his throat.
With the space cleared up for her Haruki-San sat next to him and grabbed her spray bottle, misting herself, careful not to move her head around too fast.
"Were the second years difficult this time?" Izuku asked to be polite, and Haruki-San gave a so-so hand gesture back.
"A few accidents, but nothing as big as a whole year wide protest in my honor like I've heard you got from the first years." she commented and Izuku rubbed the side of his neck, chuckling awkwardly.
"While it was a bit much at the time, but frankly I can't say that I hate the stance she took." Izuku told her.
Haku's sudden and adamant defense of two-toes would not be forgotten, and he suspected there would be a large demand for her merch from the two-toes population.
There was always a popularity boom for heroes that were friendly to them, and supportive heroes were actually added to a list online for those in quirk dominant countries almost immediately.
Which usually wouldn't be that big of a problem since usually they would only get a new hero added once every couple of years.
But there wasn't anyone on earth that could misunderstand what kind of statement Haku had made today, nor downplay the career-ending risk she chose to make by calling a large chunk of heroes' bigots on live international television.
Izuku was quite sure that by the end of the day Japan's list of 'heels' would be doubled easily from the entire first year hero course being added.
Haruki-San, who knew how bad it really could get for two-toes like him, nodded her head carefully.
"There is no doubt going to be a lot of talk about the quirkless in these days. First Hawks comes out as someone supportive, then U.A. hires its first quirkless teacher in centuries and now this? They won't shut up about it for a week at least." Haruki-San commented with a chuckle.
Izuku smiled as well at the thought.
It wasn't much, a very small group of people all things considered, but to have even one person out there in a place of power like a U.A. hero student loudly proclaim they were equal when he was younger would have been...
Just would have been completely unbelievable and he had no idea how he would have reacted if he had seen someone do that when he was younger.
He probably would have lost his mind honestly.
Izuku was brought out of his musing by Haruki-San's hand coming to rest on his shoulder.
"How are you feeling about the meeting Kiddo?" she quietly asked him, careful to not be overheard by anyone, even if the likelihood was severely unlikely since the staff would be busy with clean up or have already gone home.
Izuku frowned and leaned back into the couch.
"I'm about as excited for it as I would be for a round of rabies shots." Izuku told her, which wasn't a lie.
He had to get the shots because he'd once been bit by a wild dog that had foamed at the mouth when he was super young and dumb and tried to protect Katsuki, those shots weren't fun and he dreaded getting them as much as going into this meeting.
"Are you afraid they are going to accuse you of anything?" Haruki-San questioned and Izuku tsked, a habit he picked up from Katsuki as they reconnected and only used on purpose when he needed it to help others to get people to forget his age.
"They'll definitely try but Tsukauchi's quirk will clear me of any of the more troublesome claims." Izuku dismissively replied waving his free hand.
"Then you're worried about how they will react to you?" Haruki-San assumed.
"Kind of, All Might and Sir Nighteye are both in a grey zone of sorts and seem to be leaning towards the worse end of the spectrum." Izuku answered her.
As unlikely as it could be there was always a chance that they wouldn't listen to him and destroy the progress that he had made with Tenko and there would be nothing he could do about it.
And if they did then there would be a good chance that Tenko would truly be lost forever.
How do you go about telling the number one hero to stop when there was almost nothing you could hold over their head without seeming like the bad guy?
Other than Haruki-San and Nezu whom he explained everything to in detail, would probably be very against 'leaving' Tenko where he was.
"Sasaki I can see, but it's hard for me to think of poor Yagi being cruel to anyone. He was a more morose and lonelier version of Amajiki-Kun during his one year studying here before he went abroad." Haruki-San told him.
Izuku was nearly startled once he had the name and immediately sat up right.
"Yagi? Is that All Might's family name?" Izuku all but demanded and Haruki-San paused for a minute before she hesitantly confirmed with a "... Yes?"
Izuku jaw dropped but then he closed it.
Yagi, was a family that was famous in the two-toes world because it was one of the few lines that didn't seem to have any quirked descendants, to the point people called them cursed with permanently hollow blood, though the line was believed to have died during his mom's generation.
All Might was originally a two-toes.
Izuku, with the weight of this new idea he reclined onto the couch again as he tried to understand what that would mean.
Because while it was certainly a possibility, the sheer idea was unfathomable to him.
He could see the traits of two-toes showing in the man though, and in hindsight it made so much more sense of the man's cryptic behavior.
His avoidance of his past and the lack of information was explained by a past that he wouldn't want to expose since that would cause problems, and how hard would it be to find a connection between a barely documented quirkless person and the greatest hero in recorded history of Japan?
And the paranoid actions were just the normal holdover behavior that would have kept any two-toes safe and very hard to completely unlearn, and why would he unlearn them when he was hunted down by All For One for decades?
Even his distancing himself from others made sense since heroes could be smart and notice the traits two-toes couldn't hide if he befriended anyone, and the top ten normally weren't easy to fool by any measure.
Or his choice of charities that worked with two-toes in other countries all over the world.
Hell, even the fact that he would be able to hold the quirk for as long as he had made sense since he was sure the quirk would be rather dangerous to wield at that point without the protection of his two-toes biology.
But even with those thoughts in mind Izuku just couldn't bring himself to fully square this fact away.
Maybe it was the childish part of him that stubbornly clung to heroism with every fiber of it's being, but he just couldn't accept All Might once being a two-toes.
It felt just… wrong somehow.
Like mixing water and oil, the two things could be put together but wouldn't fully mix.
"Midoriya-Kun?" Haruki-San called waving a hand in front of his face breaking him out of his thoughts.
"I'm okay, just thinking." Izuku told her his hand up in the wait position.
This was a big difference in the way he would have to think about approaching All Might.
Him being a two-toes before Inheritance would be vastly different than when he was someone quirked.
There would be an inherent bias about him and two-toes, but perhaps All Might would be more open to him since he was a two-toes as well.
But there could also be the opposite reaction.
It wasn't rare for two-toes to try and pretend they were quirked, he's seen whole sites dedicated to keeping up the lie of their invisible quirks, even to the extent of there being sites where they could find 'family' members willing to commit to the same line of invisible quirks.
Izuku also knew of at least one case of an underground clinic willing to give them quirked features if they had enough money.
And All Might could be more on that side of things honestly.
Then he might not take so kindly to being outed as a two-toes, Izuku could maybe use that to keep him in line.
Izuku groaned and threw back his head as he buried his hands in his hair from his frustration.
He needed to stop thinking about this because it wouldn't be a rabbit hole he wanted to go down, especially if he'd only be getting himself worked up and he'd get his answers regardless either way in the meeting soon.
Thankfully before he could further antagonize himself Haruki-San grabbed him by the shoulder, this time with a much firmer grip and shook him.
"Midoriya-Kun," she said in a much sterner voice "Regardless of what is going to happen in that room, Nezu and I are behind you." Haruki-San stated.
Izuku clenched his hands.
"I know." Izuku whispered back, feeling a childish rush of minor relief from the declaration.
He knew there were hundreds of dozens of people out there that wouldn't pause to rally behind him, but actually having someone outright say it to his face before he went into the metaphoric lion's den was still very much appreciated.
It was especially more meaningful from someone that was read in on the situation and wasn't hidden from the full ugly potential scenarios that could happen if this meeting didn't end well.
Since even with the threat of outing All Might as a two-toes might not be enough to stop the man from immediately going out and trying to find Tenko.
And hopefully if All Might would try that then made Haruki-San and Nezu could talk him and the others around from being too brash.
A message alert from his phone told him it was time, he didn't need to look at the message to confirm it since there wouldn't be anything else that Nezu would text him about at this moment in time.
"Time to go then?" Haruki-San guessed and Izuku nodded, Haruki-San stood up and brushed off her clothes before clasping her hands in front of her.
"Well then, we best not keep Nezu waiting on us." she commented and Izuku silently followed her through the halls back to Nezu's office, Izuku mentally trying to build himself up as highly as he could.
Then when they got there Izuku took one last breath to further collect himself before he knocked on the door, waiting a moment as the gears of the lock down whirled to undo themselves.
"Please come in now." Nezu called and Izuku gently pushed the door open and entered the room.