"I have decided that you are not worthy of One For All. You must relinquish it at once."

Izuku flinched at the demand. He took a step back and blinked rapidly, but it didn't help him process the thought. Sir Nighteye wanted him to give up One For All? Why would he want that? It was probably because of how badly he'd screwed up with this whole thing. Blackwhip stirred within Izuku, but he forced his will on it and kept it subdued. Looking at Nighteye in that moment, Izuku could have sworn that he saw the second and third users in their flickering, misty blue and red forms behind him, frowning disapprovingly at Izuku from over the towering man's shoulders. Just as soon as he caught their forms in a flash of colour, however, they were gone, and he was left staring at Sir Nighteye with his jaw dropped and his eyes wide. Hitoshi was yelling, but he was quiet, muted, like Izuku was underwater and Hitoshi was speaking from above. His ears were ringing, he realised, and he took a deep breath to quell the steadily building agitation that was sure to spill over into panic if he let it.

"Sir," Izuku said, silencing Hitoshi and his spirited retaliation. "I don't understand. Why do I have to give up One For All?"

"Because you've done nothing but make mistake after mistake with that power you've been given. All Might does not have the resolve necessary to do the right thing, but I do. Lemillion should have received it after all, so you are to pass it on to him at his earliest convenience," Nighteye said clinically. "Am I understood?"

Izuku was about to speak again, but Hitoshi's hands tightened into fists. "That's such bullcrap!" It was Izuku's understanding that Tsu had recently asked him to swear less, mostly when he was in the background of their calls with their younger siblings, but also in general. "What right do you have to tell him what to do with his own Quirk?"

"It is not his own Quirk," Nighteye declared. "A formerly Quirkless middle-schooler has no place wielding the most powerful force this country has ever known. Midoriya must transfer One For All to Mirio Togata as soon as he can."

"First of all—!"

"Hitoshi," Izuku said, putting a hand on his shoulder for emphasis. He gave Hitoshi a look that had the other boy sighing heavily and nodding. Izuku smiled. "I can handle this. Maybe you should go and set up a bed."

The moment of silence that passed between Izuku and Hitoshi was louder than any words they shared could ever be. The look on Hitoshi's face was like a punch to the gut for Izuku. It was hard hearing the things Nighteye was saying about him. He was already feeling like a failure after all the things that had gone wrong since he'd inherited All Might's power, so to have All Might's former sidekick himself say all the things that had previously been entirely relegated to the back of his own mind during his darkest moments stung. But the way he was talking had also gotten to Hitoshi, that much was clear. If Izuku had done nothing but make mistakes since he'd inherited One For All, then that meant saving Hitoshi's life — more than once — had been a mistake, and Hitoshi already lived with enough guilt regarding the way things had gone in the past. Izuku was not going to allow his best friend to hear more of Nighteye's warped viewpoint. Hitoshi left with a pained expression on his face and the door closed automatically behind him, leaving Izuku alone with a grim Sir Nighteye. Now he was certain that he could see the second One For All wielder, shrouded in blue mist and staring at him with the cold, calculating eyes that were so similar to Katsuki's, and the third, that rippling red energy giving the grin on his face a sinister feeling to it.

"Why do you think I should transfer One For All to this Lemillion guy?" Izuku asked.

"He is more suitable than you in any number of ways," Sir Nighteye said, his eyes almost seeming to flash behind his glasses. "He is the most disciplined young man I've ever met. He never fails to make the people around him smile. His control over his own Quirk is masterful. The heart of a true hero beats in Lemillion's chest. You, on the other hand, are an immature, impulsive, incompetent and inane child playing at being everything he is. I've looked over your records and the few recordings of your combat performances that exist, and I'm afraid that I can't see whatever compelled All Might to choose you. Is that enough reason for you, Izuku Midoriya, or do you wish for me to go on?"

Izuku ignored the tightness in his chest and the stinging in his eyes. "No, that's plenty." He paused for a moment, formulating his response. "I get what you're saying. I'm not going to deny that I've been all the things you're saying I am. I have been immature and reckless, and I haven't always been able to save everyone I've wanted to. Accepting that has been hard." Izuku brought his right hand up and looked at his fingers, which didn't all follow the same bend. "It hasn't all been failures and mistakes, though. I've saved lives with this power. Shinso is one of the people who are alive because I was gifted with the strength I hold today." Izuku clenched his fist and looked Sir in the eye, giving him the hardest glare he could. "So don't you dare say that that's a mistake. I've never claimed that I'm the best person for the job, but to say that I've never done anything worthwhile is a lie. You have to know that!"

"Certainly," Sir said, shocking Izuku. "Anyone given the power of the all-powerful Symbol may rise to the occasion every now and then. Does that mean that allowing you to misuse that power the rest of the time is justified? I do not think so."

"I'm still in school," Izuku said. "I've been blessed with the greatest gift I could have ever wanted. I can help so many people. But I'm still learning how to use that power in the right way. Give me the chance to prove that I can use my power correctly and I'll do it!"

"You've already shown me more than enough to come to a conclusion. One For All is a power meant to be used for the benefit of everyone. Which person is the power benefitting right now? Someone is surely drowning right now, somewhere out there. Are you saving them? Are you stopping a villain that is certainly attacking a shopping district in Osaka? What about a businessman who is about to throw himself off a building in Hokkaido? Are you saving those people?" Sir Nighteye said. Izuku paused, and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. Words that he'd forgotten echoed in his mind. "No. You're at school. You can't save the world with intentions alone, Izuku Midoriya, no matter how good your intentions may be."

"But it's not just a power, is it?" Izuku asked. "One For All is the combined hopes and dreams of all its prior wielders. All I wield is the ability to make those dreams into reality. What makes someone a great hero isn't having great power, it's the way in which they use their power. That's why we call them Quirks. It's up to us as individuals to use the power we have. I want to be the greatest hero in the world, and I'll never stop moving toward that goal, not even if it ends up behind me!"

"That's naive," Sir Nighteye cut in.

"Maybe," Izuku said with a smile. "But I've been given the chance to try."

"Try and fail," Nighteye shouted.

"That's the risk every hero takes when they put their lives on the line for the sake of others," Izuku said. "I'm sure this Lemillion person would agree, since he's got the heart of a true hero."

Sir Nighteye fell silent and simply glared at Izuku. It didn't feel good to argue so stubbornly with a hero, but there was no chance that Izuku was just going to stand there and listen to someone who's never met him talk bad about all the good things he's been able to do with One For All. Sir Nighteye was insulting All Might's judgement, too, his teaching ability, which was something else that Izuku wasn't going to let slide. Izuku knew what Sir Nighteye's Quirk was, and he could understand how it would lead a person to think that they knew everything there was to know, even if they didn't. If Nighteye had simply criticised Izuku for his own shortcomings, then he would've been able to resolve this issue in a much more diplomatic way. The point where he'd gotten defiant and started talking back had been where Sir Nighteye had insulted his friends and mentors. He was not going to just let that happen.

"I'm assigning you to patrols," Nighteye said after a long pause. "Your partner should be arriving in a matter of minutes. Be prepared."

"Where can Shinso and I find patrol routes?" Izuku asked, trying to keep his tone neutral after such a long argument.

Sir Nighteye looked at him like he wasn't getting something obvious. "You won't be patrolling with Hitoshi Shinso, nor will he be going on patrol. I think it's best to keep you apart for now, lest you ruin our investigation even more." He seemed to gain some satisfaction from poking at Izuku one last time. "You'll be partnered with my personal student. Meet him outside."

Izuku didn't say anything more. He bowed, and quickly left the room. The change into his costume was quick, and Izuku emerged onto the street outside Nighteye's hero agency with his heart in his throat. He'd walked around Nagiso in his costume for hours on end in January, but this was a completely different kind of experience. Just informing the citizens of Nagiso that they were heroes had gotten him and Aizawa confused looks. The costumes had been secondary novelties. Izuku was going to be patrolling in a big city, where hero costumes were actually judged. He wasn't self-conscious about his costume, Izuku actually thought it looked pretty cool, but the fact remained that it was the first time he was going to be doing real hero stuff where a lot of people could see him. That was not a calming thought. He pulled the cowl of his costume up and around his face, the rabbit ear-like stems flapping in the spring wind. The green jumpsuit with black highlights running down the torso, both contrasted by the red of his sleeves, gauntlets and belt, might've looked basic and bland to some — some of the guys in class certainly spoke their mind about it — but Izuku thought it was the best. His mother had made the first iteration of his costume herself, even though he'd had the foresight to ask UA to give him gloves that could channel his Blackwhip aside from that. He didn't want to alter the basic design too much if he could help it. It felt like he could do anything when he had the costume on, like his mother was right there with him telling him that he could succeed. Izuku didn't care if it was bland.

Outside, a small group of people had gathered around a hero. That hero was tall and muscular, with blond hair and bright blue eyes. He wore a white jumpsuit with the number one-million stamped across his chest in a bold yellow, the same colour as the shoulder-pads he wore and the trim that lined his torso. The legs of the costume were blue, white white boots covering up everything below the knee. A yellow visor set in a white wraparound headset came between his face and the world. His red cape fluttered in the same spring wind as Izuku's bunny ears. Lamenting that he'd just called them bunny ears in his own head, Izuku took a deep breath to steady himself and approached the crowd of civilians that had surrounded the hero on all sides.

"Hey," the hero said. "You're one of Sir's new interns?" When Izuku nodded, the crowd turned to get a good look at him. Their eyes scanned every part of him that they could see, taking in his costume. They didn't seem to be disappointed, but the looks on their faces definitely didn't tell Izuku that they were impressed with his choice of attire. The hero laughed. "Don't mind them. Walk with me!"

As they walked down the street, the crowd dispersed. "What's your name, rookie?"

"Izuku Midoriya, but my hero name is Nexus."

"Huh, that's a weird name!" the hero said with a bright smile on his face. Izuku thought that string of words should've sounded meaner than they did when he said them. "I guess I'm not one to judge, though. Does your hero name have any special meaning?"

"Well," Izuku said, his attention passing over the hero's comment about his own name easily once he was prompted to explain his own. "It's the kind of hero I want to be. I want to be the kind of guy who anyone can look at and feel safe knowing that I'm there. I'm going to be the person who takes all the hopes and dreams of others and makes them reality. The nexus of all that positivity."

"That's awesome!" the hero exclaimed, patting Izuku on the back. With how strong he looked, it came as a shock that he didn't shove Izuku forward at all. "Well, you might have guessed that my name's Mirio Togata, but my hero name Lemillion is probably better known around these parts ever since I started working with Sir."

Izuku almost stopped walking, but he forced himself to keep pace with Mirio Togata, with Lemillion. This was him? This was the person who Sir Nighteye wanted to have One For All instead of Izuku? He certainly looked the part. Lemillion was a head taller than Izuku and would be far better prepared to handle the backlash of the power. It was Izuku's estimate that Lemillion might have been capable of wielding upwards of fifty percent of One For All's might if he was to compare their physiques. His brain suddenly came to a halt entirely. What was he doing? Izuku had never thought to compare his body with another person's before. He was not going to let Sir Nighteye force him into a corner in his own head.

"Lemillion, huh?" Izuku said in a shaky voice when he realised he hadn't spoken in a while. "Does that mean something to you?"

"It sure does, buddy!" Lemillion grinned. "I know it's basically impossible for a hero to save everyone they'd like to. That's just not realistic. Even All Might couldn't do everything. But what I can do is save a million people, so that's what I'm aiming for! I'll be the hero who saves a million people, Lemillion!"

Izuku let himself smile at that as Lemillion struck a pose, seemingly from the sheer excitement he felt talking about his dream. "That's really cool!"

"Whoa!" Lemillion said, his attention honing in on the street ahead of them.

Izuku looked out onto the street and saw a little boy that had run onto the road to collect his rubber ball. However, he hadn't waited for traffic to calm down before doing so, and now a car was speeding toward him. The driver noticed the boy and slammed on the brakes, but it was too late — the car wasn't slowing down fast enough to avoid hitting the child. One For All flared within Izuku as green lightning flashed around him, and he brought it to his new limit, twenty-four percent, which he'd achieved through his regular workouts while under house arrest. It was too slow, though — activating One For All was basically second nature at that point, but adjusting power levels was still a conscious effort on Izuku's part, and it took too long. The car would still hit the kid even if he leapt right that instant, which he did.

As Izuku soared mere inches off the ground thanks to Float, he reached out to the kid with Blackwhip, but it was still too slow. Izuku hadn't been able to react fast enough, likely due to the nature of the accident. Danger Sense only detected harmful intent. Accidents didn't trigger the Quirk. Izuku watched as all his power couldn't stop an avoidable tragedy. Suddenly a blur of white, yellow, blue and red shot up from out of the ground and into the air, bringing the child with it. Izuku redirected the trajectory of his leap with a gentle push off the ground to avoid crashing into the car that had come to a stop a metre or two past where the boy had once stood.

The blur of colour slowed down to reveal that it was Lemillion, holding the child to his chest as he landed on the ground with a roll. Izuku stayed hovering in the air, looking down at them as Blackwhip snaked back through the channels on his gloves. The kid was crying and hugging Lemillion as Izuku touched down beside them. A woman, presumably the boy's mother or caretaker of some kind, ran up to them and took the kid while uttering a hundred apologies and thanks to the two of them. Izuku felt a knot form in his chest as he realised that she was actually thanking him, too, even though he didn't do anything. Lemillion stood back up from his crouching position and smiled, not seeming to notice or care about the boy's tears that had gotten on his costume. He watched the mother and son until they turned a corner, and then faced Izuku once again.

"Crazy, right?" Lemillion said in the same tone that he seemed to say everything in — absolute, non-judgemental joy.

"Yeah," Izuku sighed. "That's a great Quirk you've got."

"Oh, my Permeation? Yeah, it's alright. I didn't always have a lot of control over it, though," Lemillion said with a laugh. "I almost drowned in a river when my Quirk first came in. Just fell right through the bridge!"

Despite the complicated feelings that were battling each other within him, Izuku laughed. He laughed more when Lemillion demonstrated what he'd probably looked like while struggling not to drown by sinking right into the footpath below them. He popped back out with stunning speed, his entire body soaring into the air before he landed back down on the ground harmlessly. Izuku noticed that he didn't land the same way as he had with the kid. Before, while holding the boy, Lemillion had rolled to dissipate the force of the landing. Then, when he'd landed by himself, his feet had actually sunk into the ground a little bit and then he'd used the force generated from them being pushed back out to break his fall. It was a genius bit of Quirk technique that Izuku didn't think he'd ever seen before. Granted, not a lot of heroes had phasing powers. They were usually too hard to control finely enough to be used for hero work, but there Lemillion was, rising above that limitation. Just another way that he was better than Izuku. He resisted the urge to face-palm as he realised that he'd fallen into Nighteye's trap again. Had he placed Izuku on patrol with Lemillion to make him see just how great he was? Hot anger bloomed in Izuku's chest at that realisation. Equally hot shame then rushed in as he realised that it was working. Izuku had only known Lemillion for about ten minutes so far and they were already getting along and falling into a mentor-mentee dynamic. Izuku wasn't at Sir Nighteye's agency to be taught. He was there to clean up the mess that he and Hitoshi had made.

Izuku did not need Danger Sense to know that this was going to be a truly hellish task.


When Izuku and Lemillion arrived back at Sir Nighteye's agency after their patrol, a man dressed in a sharp black suit and tie with the head of a centipede met them in the lobby. Izuku was almost unable to contain his excitement upon meeting one of the more famous members of Nighteye's agency, Centipeder, whose looks have earned him a top ten spot on the annual Heroes Who Look Like Villains polls five years in a row. Unfortunately, according to some online rumours, that was also what had driven him into more internal work, as he did all of the accounting and numbers for the Nighteye Agency. Centipeder approached Izuku and Lemillion, as they were pulling their cowl and visor off, and interrupted their conversation about the group of middle-school girls that seemed to be following him nowadays.

"Lemillion, newbie, Sir has called a meeting. It's about the results of the tests Bubble Girl did on the evidence the rookies brought to us this morning," Centipeder said.

"Wow!" Lemillion said with a bright grin aimed at Izuku. "Looks like your hard work is already paying off here, huh?"

"Maybe," Izuku said with significantly less enthusiasm. If it didn't have anything useful, what then? There was only one way to find out.

"Let's not keep Sir waiting," Centipeder said, and turned to escort the two younger heroes to the meeting.

On the way up to the second floor, Izuku reached into the pouch on his belt and pulled out his hero notebook. He started sketching both Lemillion and Centipeder's silhouettes so that he could fill them in at a later time with more detail. He also wrote down a basic summary of Lemillion's Quirk. Lemillion saw what he was doing over his shoulder, due to the man's height, but he didn't say anything. In fact, he only gave Izuku a thumb's up and nodded when he finished his summary of his Permeation power, like he approved. Was this guy even real? Izuku had to stop himself from writing that question down based on the muscle memory he'd trained into himself to simply transfer all his thoughts to the page reflexively. He put his notebook and pencil away in his pouch before they reached the heavy double-doors on the second floor that opened up into a spacious meeting room, which contained a wide table with dozens of chairs, three of which were already occupied by Hitoshi on the right in his hero costume — a black bodysuit with deep purple highlights running down the limbs and chest in geometric lines, white boots, an assortment of small weapons and gadgets on his utility belt such as flashbangs, noise-makers, smoke grenades, two stun batons and more, as well as his Persona Chords that hung nearly hidden around his neck beneath the layers of his replica binding cloth. The famously friendly and cheerful Bubble Girl sat on the left of the table, and Sir Nighteye took his place at the far end. Izuku quickly walked and sat down next to Hitoshi, while Centipeder and Lemillion took a seat on either side of Bubble Girl as she spoke to Nighteye.

Bubble Girl's skin was a lighter shade of blue in person than it had always seemed on television. Her hair was the kind of deep blue that Izuku had expected. Her costume was the furthest from Sir Nighteye's function over form philosophy from among his sidekicks, consisting of a dark blue crop top with a high, white collar and a zipper down the middle, and loose white shorts over tights. Chunky white boots with yellow highlights running down the sides decorated her lower legs and an air filtration mask with a clear visor was fixed to her face. Her gloved hands held a tablet that she was showing to Sir Nighteye as she talked him through its contents.

"Hey, do you know what a Hero Network is?" Hitoshi whispered from Izuku's right. Izuku quickly whispered back to him to explain that the Hero Network was an app that only fully licensed heroes had access to, which was how they coordinated with the police and with each other. When asked why he wanted to know, Hitoshi said, "Nighteye mentioned it."

"Very good, Bubble Girl. Thank you for your efforts," Sir Nighteye said, interrupting Izuku and Hitoshi's whispering off to the side of the discussion. "I have called the rest of you here to share that Bubble Girl has made a significant discovery. She has been able to deduce the contents of the dart that Midoriya and Shinso brought to us this morning."

"Really?" Lemillion gasped. "That was fast!"

"Well, it was kinda simple, really," Bubble Girl said. "There were a lot of substances that were only present to act as binding agents. The only reason a bunch of the chemicals inside the darts are there is to stabilise what I think are the two main ingredients in the cocktail inside. One of those two substances is Trigger."

"Told ya," Hitoshi whispered with a lopsided grin.

"Do you have something to add?" Sir Nighteye said, frowning at Hitoshi and Izuku as if they had both been talking under Bubble Girl's report.

"Yeah, I figured it had to be Trigger like three weeks ago," Hitoshi said with a smugness that made Izuku cringe and sink lower into his seat. Now he understood what Katsuki meant when he said that he wished Hitoshi would just stop talking sometimes.

"Wonderful." Nighteye glared at Hitoshi for a moment, but turned back to Bubble Girl. "What is the second major substance you found within the dart?"

"Blood," Bubble Girl said, her tone and expression entirely unlike her photogenic, cheerful persona that she apparently had to put on when cameras were nearby. "Human blood is the other significant substance that I could find in the mixture."

The mood of the room, which had previously been one of celebration and congratulations, turned dark. Izuku and Hitoshi gave each other a wide-eyed look, and Hitoshi finally didn't have a retort for that. Lemillion and Centipeder gave each other a lost glance, and Bubble Girl's mood in particular steeply declined into depression at sharing the news. The only person who did not react with disgust and confusion was Sir Nighteye, who simply blinked and sighed heavily.

"Well done," he said with a grim tone of voice.

"Blood?" Izuku asked, his voice high and tight.

"Trigger, too," Centipeder said, leaning forward on his elbows with his hands together, his eyes intensely focused on the middle of the table.

"What does that mean?" Lemillion asked. He looked around the table and it was clear that he was lost.

"Shinso. Since you seem to be the expert here, do you have a guess?" Sir Nighteye asked, turning toward him.

"I have no clue," Hitoshi said, seemingly not noticing that Nighteye had tried to mock him. He was just as confused and creeped out as the rest of them, judging by the look on his face.

"What about you, Midoriya?" Nighteye asked, a faint smile appearing on his face for a fraction of a second before it vanished.

"Bubble Girl said that the other substance was Trigger," Izuku began, thinking out loud as he tried his best to put the pieces together. "The only other real component is human blood. The rest of it is there to help the Trigger and the human blood … what, combine?" A horrible idea was forming in his head, but he didn't want to say it. Sir Nighteye looked at him with those cold eyes, though, and the desire to prove himself swelled in him once again. Izuku swallowed his disgust and spoke his mind. "Trigger doesn't work on anything but Quirks, it's been tried. The Trigger has to be there to enhance the Quirk of the person whose blood is in the dart. Right? The only thing I can think of is that the dart applies a stronger version of the effects of a person's Quirk."

Sir Nighteye's eyebrows rose the slightest bit. "That is the conclusion that I came to as well."

"So they've weaponised someone's powers and they don't even need to be there when they use it?" Hitoshi said, a hand coming up to grip his binding cloth tightly. "That has to be against the law somehow."

"It is," Nighteye said evenly. "It's human experimentation in order to change the nature of a Quirk, which was made punishable by the death penalty in the year 2076 by the Bethesda Accords in reaction to Daruma Ujiko's heinous crimes against nature. And that is if the person whose blood is contained within these vials consented to their creation. If not, then coercion, extortion, perhaps even torture may be on the table."

Izuku felt like his stomach was going to leap out of his throat at any second. The idea that someone could do such a thing willingly, not to mention the possibility that the blood may have been taken by force, left him reeling. By the looks of it, Hitoshi was not handling the news any better. Bubble Girl seemed thoroughly disturbed, and Centipeder and Lemillion were not far behind her in realising the implications of such a discovery.

What had the Nighteye Agency, and Izuku and Hitoshi by association, gotten themselves into? How deep did the rabbit hole of the Children of All For One's associates go? Izuku didn't think anybody was ready to answer that question, but they were going to find out, one way or another. He hoped it would be as painless as possible. It never was.