It was a relatively warm Monday afternoon that Izuku was shutting out by closing the door to his dorm room behind Hitoshi as they both slipped inside after school. The two of them had waited patiently for a week for this moment, and they were finally seeing their planning and efforts bear fruit. Izuku locked the door and went over to his desk to set up his computer. Hitoshi paced around the room while Izuku went to work setting up the app he'd gotten Hatsume to install on his computer as well as on his phone. He hadn't tested it out yet, because he'd been a little busy with training for the past few days — he also hadn't wanted to possibly validate both his own and Hitoshi's anxiety about it — but Izuku knew it would work just the way they wanted it to. It was Hatsume-approved, after all! Hitoshi became more nervous as time went on, though, enough that Izuku tapped him on the shoulder with Blackwhip from across the room in a silent effort to get his attention again. That stopped the pacing, but without that, Hitoshi devolved into nonsense mutterings. Izuku hoped that he didn't sound like that when he went too deep into his own head.
When everything was ready to go, Hitoshi hesitantly sat at the edge of Izuku's bed and hovered over his shoulder to see the screen. It was nerve-wracking clicking onto the folder labelled av-stream-downloads, but when Izuku did, it was worth it. Eight video files filled the folder, each of them named after dates that had all passed in the last week or so. Ever since they'd planted the camera, that video had been fed in twenty-four hour batches to this app, and the two of them could now view it at their leisure. Izuku met Hitoshi's eyes, and the two boys grinned at each other. They turned back to the screen and Izuku found his way to the first video file, titled 18-02-2172. Izuku brought out his notebook and flipped to a new page in order to take notes about what he was about to see in the video feed. He saw Hitoshi's anxiety melting away and cold focus replacing it out of the corner of his eye. Izuku pressed play on the video.
Izuku and Hitoshi sped the video files up by many times, just slow enough so that they could still catch things like people entering the vicinity of the warehouse, but just fast enough so that the entire process didn't take days and weeks of their time. Izuku and Hitoshi both agreed that it would be better if they could do this fast. Who knows how long they had until the Children worked up to their plan to free All for One? Time was of the essence. Minutes sped by in seconds, hours in minutes, and the boys didn't notice real time passing them by. The two of them were locked onto the video feed, noting everything they saw in an almost hypnotic state. Very soon, they'd reviewed a whole day's worth of footage, and then two days' worth, and by the end of their viewing session several hours later, they had reviewed the week's worth of video, all the way up to that Monday, the twenty-sixth of February. They were able to spot a great many things, which Izuku jotted down into his notebooks with nearly inhuman speed. Even he wasn't sure whether or not he put a little bit of One for All into his writing speed.
The first thing that they noticed was that trucks came to and from the warehouse every day, driving around and front and just barely visible behind the long, short structure. Izuku and Hitoshi couldn't spot whatever it was that they were moving or taking away from the warehouse, but there was definitely something being moved to and from the building. That was a start in figuring out what was truly going on there. Izuku's theories weren't very comprehensive. He thought that the warehouse was either just a meeting place for some kind of villain group composed of the Children and these new villains that neither Izuku nor Hitoshi had ever seen before, or a storage facility for something. He leaned toward the latter of those two options, but even that wasn't a very strong assertion. Izuku wished he could say something more definitive. Hitoshi never argued with any of his theories, even though he clearly thought some of them were less realistic than others. Izuku regretted bringing up the stray thought that it was possible that it was just a regular business that they were involved in.
As it turned out, Tuesday had brought some results. In addition to the seemingly daily deliveries and dropoffs, people stopped by through the front entrance. The Children of All for One and the plague doctor and his crew were caught in high-definition. Izuku took the time to properly sketch them. The Children of All for One looked exactly the same as they had back during winter break, but they were wearing normal civilian clothes nowadays. Izuku amended that thought as he noticed that all of the Children looked fuller, more muscular and toned. It was almost like they'd all been malnourished and underweight back when Izuku had met them, even Ikari and Chikara. That was a scary thought. It made more difference in the appearances of Matabaki, Kisei, and Katachi, who now showed their own shares of dense muscle under the skin that their surprisingly low-profile clothing showed. They all looked like regular people that Izuku wouldn't blink twice at on the street, aside from Ikari's sheer size. Izuku wondered if that was because Kisei had used her Quirk to steal the knowledge of how to blend in from some poor person who might've been rendered comatose forever because of it.
The plague doctor and his friends were more interesting, and Izuku took the time to properly draw them in his notebook and amend his previous mistakes in his depictions of them from his first attempt. It turned out that the bald member of their group wasn't wearing sunglasses — he had gemstones for eyes. That wasn't something Izuku had ever seen before. Other small details like that helped the visual depictions of the entourage match the real people. Once again, the plague doctor wore his mask, but the quality of the picture gave more details than last time. He had a number of piercings in his left ear, the same gold as the embroidery on his mask. His eyes were also golden, and seemed to look past everything he met with them. No emotion touched his eyes the whole time he was on camera. Izuku shivered when it looked like the man almost looked right at the camera from the street, but it turned out to be a false alarm. He and Hitoshi also took note of the time that they arrived at the warehouse at, three o'clock, and the time that they left, four o'clock, so that they could try and develop a rough timetable for when the warehouse is occupied and when it isn't. If they were eventually going to get out there and investigate in person, that was a must.
By the time they reached the end of the week's footage, they had a rough understanding of how things worked regarding the goings on at the warehouse. The Children, the plague doctor and his men would all arrive at three o'clock. Throughout the footage, they'd only met on two days of the week, Tuesday and Thursday. Once they all met in the warehouse, they did whatever it was that they did inside and left after an hour. That begged the question — where did they all go when they weren't at the warehouse? What were the Children doing during the other one-hundred and sixty-six hours of the week? There were still too many unknowns. They needed more information.
Izuku studied Kisei and the plague doctor's faces. They both had a similar look to them. It wasn't that their faces were similar, but their expressions were the same, like they could look at anything and have the utmost confidence. But there were also notable differences, too. Izuku had seen that look from Kisei in person, and he had always thought it to be a kind of analysis that she did in every single waking moment. Her power was mental, information-based, so she was always calculating what her next move was, even down to the next step she could take. Kisei was constantly evaluating people in that way, too. The look on her face was that of anticipation, because she already knew everything that could happen thanks to her ability to literally steal knowledge. The plague doctor had a markedly similar but slightly unique look on his face at all times. His evaluations were more practical. Where Kisei marked people, because her Quirk worked on people, this man's observations were more based on the environment around him. Izuku noticed that the plague doctor took a quick glance down every alley he passed once entering into the camera's sight, even though he had such a large group backing him up. Was he scared of something happening? Izuku didn't think so. He was too confident, at least outwardly, for that. He also was constantly expecting something to happen, but not because he knew. It was because he wanted it, according to Hitoshi's theory. He wanted something to happen because that was how he got his thrill. Izuku didn't agree, because it didn't seem like there was any joy behind those eyes whatsoever, but Hitoshi maintained that the plague doctor was just like all the other adrenaline junkies.
It was when Hitoshi took a good look at Izuku's sketch of the plague doctor man that he took the guy seriously.
"What is that?" he asked, pointing to Izuku's drawing of the insignia that he'd seen on the plague doctor's back. Izuku explained. Hitoshi's jaw dropped, and he stood up to start pacing again.
"Do you know that symbol?" Izuku asked.
"Yeah. Back when I was interning with Midnight last May, I saw it on a little bag we took off a dumb kid dealing drugs in an alley. Midnight explained to me that it's the calling card of one of the biggest yakuza clans around. She didn't tell me any more than that, but she told me enough so that I know they're trouble. More trouble than we can deal with alone. I think it's time to go to Aizawa with this," Hitoshi said.
"Wait, no! We're just getting started!" Izuku said, joining Hitoshi in standing.
"How far do you want to take this?" Hitoshi asked. "Lying to all our friends, chasing after Nomu, messing with the yakuza. Do you want to go to Tartarus and keep watch over All for One yourself?"
Izuku didn't immediately reply to that last jab. "I know that it's dangerous, but I've never meant to get us into anything we can't handle. We can do this!" Hitoshi stood there for a moment, staring at Izuku with a tense expression on his face. Izuku said, "We're not going to walk in there when they're all just hanging out. I have an idea."
"It better be a good one," Hitoshi said, letting himself fall back onto the end of Izuku's bed.
"That depends on your definition of good," Izuku said with a smirk, but he cleared his throat and fixed his expression when Hitoshi didn't laugh. "I don't know if we can trust that the routine we saw in that footage is the norm for these people. If what we saw this week was their normal schedule, then I say we slip in on a weekend or even an afternoon that isn't Tuesday or Thursday and check the warehouse out. If what we saw is reliable data, they're not going to be there. Right?"
"That doesn't sound terrible," Hitoshi said, though he didn't do a very good job of matching his tone to his words. "We'll need to be careful, though. I know you can do basically anything you want to, but I have a very limited skillset, so I have to get some things ready."
Hitoshi left shortly after that. Izuku wound down from the day as he prepared for bed, and processed the things that he had seen. He was getting closer to the Children, closer to thwarting whatever their plan was to break their father out of prison. Izuku wondered what he would do if he were to catch them. He would stop them, surely, but how? He couldn't fight Ikari and Matabaki yet, he just wasn't powerful enough yet. Izuku knew that he could likely take them on separately, but together they would be too much. Could he talk to them? They seemed to not want to kill him, since they saw him as just another brother, but how likely was it to work? How likely were Aizawa and All Might to let him try? There were too many unknowns, and he couldn't do a lot to reduce them to known factors. There was a burning feeling in his chest as he laid down to sleep, an urge to do something. He didn't quite know what it was that he wanted to do, but he knew he needed to act on the urge soon or he'd explode. Izuku simply needed action of any kind. He felt an immense desire to fulfil his duties as the ninth bearer of One for All and ensure that All for One could never be freed. It took a long time for Izuku to ignore this feeling and sleep at last.
When he finally closed his eyes, the familiar sinking sensation of a One for All dream, followed by his feet hitting the ground, told him that Izuku's night wasn't done just yet. He stood in the middle of the semi-circular throne room where the prior users of his Quirk resided, that arc of seats that surrounded him. A single wall took form beyond the thrones, bearing a vault door that Izuku had seen in his dreams a few times. This was the room where One for All had been born, where All for One had kept his little brother chained like an animal before giving the power stockpiling power to Yoichi, which accidentally merged with the man's innate Quirk bestowal ability and created the one power for all people that Izuku wielded over a hundred years after that day. Izuku looked around at the eight vestiges that were seated in an arc around him, some stern and some with softer, fonder expressions on their faces.
"Izuku," Yoichi said from his throne in the exact centre of the arrangement. "Well done."
"For … what?" Izuku asked. He couldn't think of anything particularly impressive that he'd done within the last day or so that would warrant such a congratulations.
"I told you guys he'd forget!" Daigoro said with a big grin on his face.
"Do you know what the date is, Izuku?" Nana asked with a small smile on her face. Izuku had noticed before that she never really expressed happiness like Daigoro or Yoichi did, with big smiles and laughs. She was quiet, with sharp eyes and a tough look on her face at basically all times. It was rare that she gave even the small, sad-seeming smile that she gave in that moment.
"The twenty-sixth, why?" Izuku asked, looking around at all the past users. Sankitsuo and the second user, whose name he still did not know, were ignoring Izuku, standing off to the sides of the vault doors and glaring at the wall in a pointed display of annoyance.
"What happened on this day a year ago?" Yoichi asked.
Izuku didn't even need to think back — the answer came to him immediately. "The entrance exam. Oh, wait! Today was the one year anniversary of me inheriting One for All!"
"That's right. On this day one year ago, you miraculously manifested Banjo's Quirk and started down the road of mastering our powers," En said. "Of course, it didn't turn out to be as miraculous as we once thought, given what your innate ability is."
"Holding. The power to use multiple Quirks as if they're my own. All for One's ability," Izuku said, holding his hand out and clenching it hard, as if he could force that to be incorrect through the strength of his wishing it to be so.
"That derivative power of yours allowed us to live again, in a way, so don't feel bad about the source of your wonderful ability," Yoichi said with a smile.
"In addition to that, your innate Quirk may have saved more people than all of us combined," Shinomori said in a flat voice.
"What do you mean?" Izuku asked.
"You remember what we told you back after your clash with All for One, yes?" Shinomori stared at him with keen, narrow eyes, like he could see more than the others. "One for All isn't a power that just anyone can wield. It's a raging torrent of strength, an ocean when every person is a mere glass. That excess spills over and shatters the glass, shatters the wielder, if they don't have some sort of safeguard in place. Before you, the eighth had a safeguard in his Quirklessness. His glass didn't have a shape, a Quirk, that limited him in the amount of power his body could receive and exert. Thus, when he inherited One for All from the seventh, his body formed its own glass around One for All, negating the issue. None of us had that safeguard, though only I lived with the power long enough to become familiar with the consequences." Izuku's eyes unconsciously traced the two jagged lines, scars that ran down Shinomori's face, over his eye and mouth. "You were born with a safeguard as well, though yours is different to the eighth's."
"That's right. My Quirk didn't just bring you all to the surface. It also kept me from feeling the negative effects of having such a powerful second Quirk on top of my own. I think I remember what you said back after Kamino, too. Because my Quirk will also be passed onto the future wielders of One for All, they don't need to worry about all of this. I …" Izuku hesitated. Saying this with such certainty could be viewed as arrogant, or self-centred. At the nods from Daigoro, he continued. "One for All really is a power for all people now, because of my time with it."
"Precisely," Yoichi said. "For that, we thank you. You, Izuku Midoriya, might be the one to complete One for All. You certainly have added more to it than any of us could have ever hoped to."
"However," Nana said, drawing Izuku's attention away from his uncle — it never got less weird to acknowledge that Yoichi was his uncle. "That's not the reason we wished to speak with you tonight." She stood, towering over Izuku in a way that he didn't think was supposed to be so intimidating, and her slight smile vanished in favour of a stern expression that froze all the warmth that had previously shown through her eyes. "You need to think very carefully about what you do next."
"Indeed," En said, "Shimura is correct. It's no small task to fight against the yakuza."
Izuku was reminded yet again that the vestiges could learn the things he knew without him telling them. "I'm not trying to fight the yakuza. I promise."
"Why are you getting involved in the yakuza, then?" Daigoro said with a wry grin on his face.
"I'm not!" Izuku said, but at the looks on the vestiges' faces, he sighed. "I didn't mean to."
"We're not disparaging you for doing hero work without explicit permission," En said. "Half of us lived in a time where that was the norm. What we're concerned about is how you plan to go about it."
"We know you're capable, you've proven that much in the year you've been wielding our Quirks," Nana said. "But you're still only barely using twenty percent of One for All comfortably. And you're still only sixteen. You've had your provisional licence for two months. There's merit in not biting off more than you can chew."
Izuku and Nana met each other's gaze for a moment. There was sadness there, like always, but there was intelligence sparkling in her dark eyes. Izuku knew how Nana had died. She'd held off All for One while All Might and Gran Torino had fled. The seventh wielder of One for All had knowingly taken on an opponent that she knew she could not overcome in order to ensure the future of her partner and her successor. Nana Shimura knew about biting off more than one could chew. Izuku looked away from that intense, knowing gaze.
"Your main goal is these Children, yet now you've discovered that the yakuza may be involved," En said, crouching on his seat as if he were perching on the edge of a building. "In my day, organised crime was back on the rise after a lot of the clans disbanded due to the chaos of the Dawn of Quirks. The bulk of my hero career was dealing with these re-emerging yakuza clans. They may not all have particularly strong Quirks, but the type of person who joins the yakuza has nothing left to lose and everything to gain. Be wary of their unpredictability. It's my belief that knowledge of your enemy is the greatest weapon a hero can wield. Without it, even if you have more power than your foe, you can't do your best. It's what got me killed against All for One. I'd heard stories, but I had no idea what I was going up against and thought my meagre power was all it would take to vanquish the demon lord. Be careful. Be smart. I know you can do both."
Daigoro got up from his seat with a tired groan and walked over to pat Izuku on the back with his big hands, causing Izuku to be thrown off-balance from the force. "The kid and his successor always were the cautious type. There's value in being so quick to use such overwhelming force that the bad guys don't have the opportunity to respond! If you train yourself up as much as you can in the time you've got, and then rush 'em with the awesome force of One for All, then they've got no shot against you!"
"I agree with the sentiment, even if your wording is crass," Shinomori said. He turned to Izuku and frowned. "I spent my entire adult life doing one thing. I knew that the power you hold today was in its infancy, and was determined to provide as much strength to my successor as I could. I attempted to persuade Lariat into doing the same, but he was already a pro hero by that time, and nothing could dissuade him from that lifestyle." Daigoro stuck his tongue out at Shinomori, which his predecessor didn't acknowledge. "I can not stress enough how important it is that you become stronger, much stronger than you are now. The Children of All for One are set on unleashing our common enemy upon Japan once again. That must not be allowed to happen."
"Go easy on the kid, old man!" Daigoro said with a laugh
"Thinking anything to do with this life is easy is what puts kids like him in the ground," Shinomori said, scowling at Daigoro fiercely.
"Let's not argue," Yoichi said, silencing the replies that Nana and En had been preparing. He stood and approached Izuku, causing Daigoro and Shinomori to step away from each other to give him passage. Yoichi's green eyes met Izuku's, and he was met with how strikingly similar their eyes really were. It was the first time that Izuku had seen a physical feature of his reflected in his uncle, aside from his relatively short stature. "I've seen you use our powers well this year, nephew. I trust you to keep using them in any way you choose. All of your predecessors are correct, in their own ways. It is important that you not be hasty, and that you know your limits. You've always known that you must be careful, though, and I have faith in your ability to keep yourself and the ones you care about safe. After making it this far, I have no doubts that you can do anything you wish, even if it'll take some more training to physically stand up to the facsimiles that my brother has made of himself. You'll have to take Smoke Eater's word regarding the yakuza, though, since I never got involved in those kinds of affairs. Take care, Izuku. I believe in you. We all do."
"Those of us that matter believe in you," Daigoro said with a smirk, pointing over his shoulder at the sulking second and third users.
Izuku didn't know how to feel about all of what he'd just heard. It was kind of surreal that he was following in so many of his predecessors' footsteps by accidentally discovering that the yakuza were involved with the Children. He had never expected the fight between One for All and All for One to spill over like that. Izuku took in everything that he'd heard from the past users and thought about it as the dream faded and he fell into real sleep. They'd all been saying different things, but the vestiges were all sharing the same sentiment with him through their arguments — they were on his side and ready to back him up if he needed the guidance. As he faded into unconsciousness, Izuku took comfort from that after the period of radio silence between himself and the vestiges. They were all such cool, strong, noble people that he felt as if Yoichi's words were really true, that he could do anything he wanted if he just tried hard enough, if they were on his side pushing him forward. He doubted he would ever be able to thank them enough for how they've helped him get a handle on their Quirks, but he also doubted that he really needed to. He could sense it, somehow. Just using their abilities to help people when they couldn't was thanks enough to them.
The next morning, Izuku woke up with that same burning feeling in his stomach, but it was significantly more tolerable this time around. It was almost more like anticipation or excitement, not a strict need for immediate progress — more like giddiness stemming from the certainty Izuku now felt that there would be eventual progress. That was a much better feeling to have pushing him forward. Izuku got up and got ready for the day with a smile on his face and a spring in his step.
Izuku Midoriya was ready to take on anything that came his way now that he had the confidence of six great heroes backing him up. With that, he was sure that he could do anything he wanted.