In the lunchroom, Izuku was going through the list of invitations for an internship, there being a thousand names overall. He didn't intend on choosing any of them, since he already was going to ask Aizawa to take him for the week, but it was still interesting to go through it, and maybe highlight a few alternate choices if Aizawa rejected him.

There were some interesting Heroes there, like some combat Heroes including Death Arms, Fourth Kind and Gunhead. Some other Heroes, such as Fatgum and even Hawks himself, the number three ranked Hero, asked for him to come to his agency and intern with him, which almost made him pass out from sheer fanboyism, but he had to make Aizawa his priority.

"Are you still going through that thing?" Shinso asked Izuku, breaking him out of his concentration.

"Yeah. I want to be sure I'm making the right choice. Don't you?" Izuku asked, flipping a page.

"Well, sure. Your food is getting cold, though," Shinso said, pointing toward his bowl of beef stew, which was no longer steaming.

With a yelp, Izuku dug into his food, as Shinso smirked at him. The people at the table, namely Izuku, Shinso, Ochako, Tsu and Iida had been talking about who they wanted to intern with. Iida had been enthusiastic about going to work with Manual, the Normal Hero, who if memory serves Izuku, was a hydrokinetic, so far from Iida's general range of abilities. He knew that Iida was up to something with picking Manual, but he didn't know what.

"Well, I only got one invite, so I've kinda got it all worked out already," Ochako said, chuckling lightly at her situation.

"How did you even get an invitation? You weren't at the Sports Festival," Shinso asked.

"Oh, Izuku and I ran into Death Arms yesterday. He offered to take one or both of us for our internships," Ochako explained.

"What? How many famous Heroes do you know?" Shinso asked, craning his head toward Izuku, who stared at his bowl intently.

"Yes, this is quite the mystery, Midoriya," Iida said, smiling lightly.

"What is?" Tsu asked.

"Oh, it's just that Midoriya knows every Pro Hero alive," Shinso said, smirking as he did.

"Not all of them! Just … some," Izuku said, waving his hands in front of his face.

"What would you say is 'some', Midoriya?" Tsu asked.

"I've met like … five or six?" Izuku said, ready for the onslaught.

"HOW?!" Ochako asked, gripping the edges of her tray tightly.

"I used to walk around the city in my free time looking for Villain fights, since I had a lot of free time. I used to document the Quirks used in the fight, and that put me in a position where I could meet a few different Heroes," Izuku explained hurriedly.

"Just who do you know?" Tsu asked, putting a finger to her chin.

"Uh, well … I kinda already met Death Arms like a year ago, as well as a few more Heroes like Backdraft, Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods. Slugger, too!" Izuku answered.

"What could possibly put you in a position where you'd meet Heroes like Mt. Lady, Death Arms, Kamui Woods and Backdraft?" Iida asked.

"I was kinda … caught by a Villain," Izuku admitted, waiting for the response.

"What?" Iida's shocked response.

"Are you okay?" Ochako's natural reply, even though he was sitting right there, perfectly fine.

"What happened?" Shinso asked.

"What kind of Villain?" Tsu asked.

Izuku didn't like remembering that day, even though it was the day when All Might had told him that he could be a Hero. It had been so painful up until that, that he didn't like thinking about it. First was school, where Bakugo had told him to … yeah. Then, All Might had crushed his dreams, then, he had almost died achieving nothing by getting attacked by the same Villain twice in a day, and even being responsible for the Villain's freedom the second time. At least he had moved on from that, now, and had friends and powers, and was living his dreams.

"It was a Villain that was made of sewage, it seemed. He jumped me, before All Might intervened. He saved my life, and I was starstruck. I just … didn't know what to say to all that muscle," Izuku said, stifling a laugh at his former awkwardness.

"So that's why you love All Might so much!" Ochako said, sounding like she had unlocked the secrets of the universe.

"Yeah. He's just a really great Hero who I want to be like when I go Pro," Izuku said, smiling softly.

"Is that all? What about the other Heroes?" Shinso asked, looking at Izuku strangely.

"Well, the thing is, that I wanted to talk to All Might really badly, so I grabbed onto his leg when he was going to jump away. I was pulled with him, and that dislodged the container he had used to imprison the Villain. That container dropped out of the sky, unbeknownst to either of us, and landed in a market," Izuku said, looking downcast.

"No way, this is that?" Ochako asked, a look of recognition flashing across her face.

"You've heard this story?" Iida asked Ochako.

"No, I saw this on the news," she said, stressing just how big this event was to the group.

"What happened?" Tsu asked.

"The Sludge Villain rampaged around the market, and he captured a kid who … holy crap. It was Bakugo!" Ochako realized, remembering the ash blond hair of the boy on the news.

Izuku snapped his attention to Bakugo, who was eating at the end of a table trying to separate himself from the group of Kirishima, Kaminari, Ashido and Sero, but failing to tune them out entirely. He picked up on Ochako's realization, and snapped his eyes to Izuku, who met them with a worried look that met the enraged expression that Bakugo now wore.

Bakugo stood up and stared at Ochako, his gaze burning a whole into the side of her head. Izuku looked at Ochako, who clearly knew that he had heard her. Her eyes were wide, and she refused to look over at Bakugo, even as he started making his way over to her.

"He heard me, didn't he?" Ochako asked, her voice tense.

"It seems so," Iida said, observing as Bakugo approached Ochako from across the large gap between their tables.

"He's coming over here, isn't he?" Ochako asked, her fists clenching at the thought.

Izuku saw Shinso scowl, knowing what was happening. Izuku himself knew what was happening, having seen Ochako's reaction to mentioning Bakugo during her recovery. Her breath sped up, and her hands shook. It seemed that Shinso understood what was happening, watching her with wide eyes as Bakugo finally reached the table.

"You fuckers are talking about me behind my back?" Bakugo asked, staring at Ochako from behind.

"Ochako did nothing wrong, Bakugo. It was all me. I was telling the story of the Sludge Villain Incident, and that story does feature you quite a bit," Izuku said, making Bakugo look at him.

"Hmm, whatever. Don't tell stories when all the people in them aren't around," Bakugo said, relaxing slightly.

"Well, then. Would you like to continue? The Sludge Villain has just captured you," Tsu said, boring into Bakugo's eyes with her non-expressive eyes.

"He captured me. So what? It didn't mean that he was strong. It was a bad matchup. Only someone as strong as All Might could have beaten that fucker," Bakugo said, grunting at the memory of raw sewage in his throat.

"It's true. A lot of Heroes tried. Mt. Lady was too big to get her footing so that she could attack. The Villain was using Bakugo's explosions to create massive fires, so that immediately put Kamui Woods at risk of burning by even setting foot in there. Backdraft was busy controlling the fires, so he couldn't exactly stop to fight the Villain. That left Death Arms," Izuku said.

"That asshole would never have been strong enough to beat the slimy bastard. His Quirk makes him strong, but not strong enough to blow away a person with a liquid body. To do that, you need the power to create insanely powerful air currents with just a punch," Bakugo said.

"That's when All Might arrived. He saw the Villain and blew him away with one punch, hitting him so hard that the air currents swirled up into the sky and changed the weather, disrupting the clouds so much that it rained," Izuku explained.

"Oh. I thought you were gonna say that your Quirk finally manifested at that moment. You have that kind of power, too, after all," Shinso said, looking at Izuku strangely.

"What? That's not really accurate! I'm not nearly as strong as All Might," Izuku said, silently having a panic attack.

"Shinso's right. At the USJ, we all saw how you blew away that Villain with the hands all over him. That created wind currents similar to the ones All Might did while fighting the Nomu," Tsu said, narrowing her eyes at Izuku.

"Everyone, please stop grouping up on Midoriya. You're making him feel upset," Iida said, pointing to Izuku's quickly paling face.

"Oh, shit. Are you alright?" Shinso said, knowing how it felt to be in Izuku's position.

Izuku quickly stood up and began to walk away. He almost made it to the exit when Bakugo caught up with him, holding onto his shoulder and spinning him around so that they could make eye contact. Bakugo stared at him intently, frowning at Izuku's flinching away from him.

He felt like the air around him was trying to rip the air from his lungs.

"What's wrong with you? This has something to do with where you got your Quirk, doesn't it?" Bakugo asked, narrowing his eyes at Izuku.

Not trusting himself to keep his composure in his frazzled state, Izuku just turned around and started walking again, not bothering to answer Bakugo's question. He made his way out of the lunchroom, breathing heavily. Izuku really missed Nana's comforting presence, now. He needed to get One for All working for him again.

As he walked around campus aimlessly, Izuku found himself in front of the teachers' lounge. His home. It was still strange to Izuku, but he was getting used to living on campus. It was such a bizarre thing, to have wanted more than anything to simply visit the place once just a year ago, and now he lived there. It certainly made him look back on how far he had come.

Suddenly, a loud voice came through the speakers, who Izuku recognized as Principal Nezu. The speakers blared for a second, whining from some feedback, before settling and allowing Nezu to speak.

"Izuku Midoriya, could you please make your way to Conference Room Twelve, please?" Nezu asked, sounding far too polite than he suspected the creature was in private, before signing off.

Izuku wondered what the situation was. Maybe All Might wanted to talk with him, but the teachers' lounge was becoming too public of a place for their secret meetings. It wasn't so secret, anymore, since Todoroki outed him to the class before the Sports Festival. He really needed to have a talk with Todoroki one of these days.

He made his way to the conference room, finding it in about five minutes. Despite being a fairly large campus, the signs posted throughout were actually very intuitive, and it never took more than a few moments for a lost student to regain their sense of direction. Izuku walked in to see a person he hadn't in about three weeks.

Inko Midoriya.

The first thing Izuku noticed was that she had lost weight. A lot, by the looks of it. The second thing was that she had red, puffy eyes and pale looking skin, as well as a split in her lip. She hadn't been eating, then. Izuku hated that he had done this to her, but it was all for her own good.

Aizawa was sitting across from her, and a seat at Aizawa's side was available, the man's look telling him to sit. Izuku made his way to the seat, sitting down next to his teacher and looking his mother in the eye for the first time in almost a month.

"Hello, Izuku. How are you?" Inko asked, none of the anger he had last seen within her eyes during their last confrontation being present.

"I'm … fine. How have you been doing since …?" Izuku trailed off, not wanting to mention him running away.

"I've been fine. Are you eating right? Have you been sleeping?" Inko asked.

Izuku knew that he had always had an issue with sleep. He liked to scold Shinso whenever he showed obvious signs of sleep deprivation, but Izuku had been no better, even recently. Throughout his training with All Might on the beach, he had slept as much as he could, but before and after that? He was often up until the early hours of the morning writing in his notebooks. Food was a similar issue, especially when he was younger. Izuku had developed the habit of not eating or sleeping until he finished an entry, and it had almost put him in the hospital once.

"Yes. UA is taking good care of me. You, on the other hand …" Izuku said.

"Oh, don't worry about me. It's my job to do that for you, remember?" Inko laughed airily.

"Yeah," Izuku muttered, seeing how out of breath she had gotten just from laughing. She wasn't healthy.

He looked at Aizawa out of the corner of his eye, seeing the man carefully observing both of the Midoriya's, probably ready to cancel Quirks if it was needed.

"I've called you both here to discuss Izuku's … situation. His living arrangements have not been released to the public, nor the students. He can't live on UA's campus forever. It was always a temporary solution, until we found something more permanent that we could all agree on. That's what this is about. We have to decide what will happen with regards to your living arrangements," Aizawa said, turning to Izuku.

"Um … how do we do that?" Izuku asked.

"Well, we'll hear both of your suggestions before coming to a conclusion based on the two. If they align, great. If they don't … that's fine. We can work something out, probably as a compromise," Aizawa said.

"Do you want to talk first?" Izuku asked, turning to Inko and getting a nod from the woman.

"I want Izuku to come and live with me again. I think that … living at school can't be good for you. I want to try and mend our family, and I feel that you do, too. I believe that we can start over, Izuku. Together," Inko said, starting to tear up slightly.

Inko's tears threatened to summon Izuku's own, but he fought them back. The two had always been a chain reaction. If one of them started crying, the other wasn't far behind. It was usually Inko who started it, but Izuku had initiated more than a few reactions. The two adults sat in silence, waiting for Izuku's response.

"I want that, too …" Izuku said, making Inko light up. "… but I can't," he finished.

"What? Why?" Inko asked, the tears barely not falling.

"I'd like to start over, to rebuild our family. I really would. I just … can't forgive what you said to me. That hurt, Mom. It still does. I'd heard that kind of stuff before, but from you? That hurt. Not just because it was you, either, though that was a big part of it. The reason it hurt me so much, Mom, was because it was true. I did do all the things you said. I ruined your chance at love. It wasn't intentional, I didn't know that I did it, but I did," Izuku said, tears falling down his cheeks.

"Oh, Izuku," Inko said, her own tears starting to fall.

"That's why I ran. I was angry, yeah, but I also thought it was the best way for you to get what you wanted; what you had needed for the past ten years. If you didn't have such a … defect around, you'd be able to find love with someone who could love you for who you are, not detest you for something you had no hand in," Izuku said, feeling Aizawa's eyes on him.

"Please don't be going where I think you're going," Inko whispered, not trusting herself to speak any louder without sobbing.

"I'm choosing to remain in UA's custody. Not because I hate you; I could never do that. I love you too much to hate you. I'm doing this because I think you deserve something that I could never give you. You deserve to be happy, and that can't happen while I'm around, so I want to remain with UA, if that's possible," Izuku said, turning to Aizawa.

"Kid, I want you to think this through. This choice has ramifications outside yourself. You're not only affecting yourself, but your mother. Can you live with that?" Aizawa asked, looking Izuku dead in the eyes.

"Yes. If it lets my Mom be happy, I'd do anything," Izuku said, returning his teacher's icy glare.

Izuku and Aizawa held their stare for a moment. He could see, in Aizawa's expression, there was conflict. He could tell that Aizawa was torn between the mother and son. He saw a small change in Aizawa's expression, something like a flash of a thought through his eyes, and he finally looked away.

"Fine. Let's continue. There are a few options for you if you don't wish to return home. We have a few safehouses nearby that we lend to Heroes who need to lay low. You could occupy one of these full time," Aizawa said, opening a packet and passing a picture of the safehouse to Izuku, and one to Inko.

"What if a Hero needs it? I'd rather not get in the way," Izuku said, examining the picture.

"Alright. We have a few other programs, but I don't think any of them would sit right with you. You're heroic to a fault, Izuku Midoriya. That's gonna get you in trouble one day," Aizawa said, searching through his documents for the right paper.

"Well, I'd rather act and know I tried then do nothing and regret it later," Izuku said, staring at the table.

Aizawa froze. He looked straight ahead, wide eyed. His hands started shaking, and Izuku looked up to see what was going on. Aizawa's eyes were glowing red, and his hair was on end, having accidentally activated his Quirk from the shock.

"Are you okay?" Izuku asked.

With his hair falling and his eyes returning to their normal color, Aizawa resumed his search for the correct document. He mumbled something that he thought Izuku couldn't hear, but he picked it up just fine.

"Damn you, Shirakumo," Aizawa had mumbled.

"Here it is," Aizawa said, throwing the sheets of paper, held together by a staple, onto the table.

"Adoption?" Inko asked, paling even more than she already had.

"Yes. Izuku becomes a ward of UA, leaving you with no legal responsibilities or rights when it comes to him. He'd live in a small dormitory a short walk from the school's campus, but still on UA's property. It would be easy to build in less than an hour due to Cementoss's Quirk, and it would be a sort of trial for something that UA has been wanting to try for a long time, now," Aizawa explained.

"I … don't know how I feel about this. I mean … giving up my baby? I could never have imagined …" Inko said, holding a hand over her mouth.

"It's okay, Mom. I want this. It would be better for both of us," Izuku said, wiping away tears.

"A-Alright, then. If I sign this, do you promise that you'll be okay?" Inko asked, picking a pen out of her purse.

"I do. Do you?" Izuku asked back.

"I'll try, Izuku. I will," Inko said, the tears streaming down her face as she pulled the papers toward her with her Quirk.

Izuku and Aizawa watched as Inko signed the papers, the scratching of the pen against paper being the only sound in the room for a moment. Inko then pushed the paper over to Izuku, who took the pen from her and quickly put his signature down as well. It felt strange, to be willfully signing away his mother's rights to him, but it was what needed to be done, for both of them to thrive.

Aizawa collected the papers, and Izuku and Inko shared a look. It was a look that told both of them that, even though they'd be apart, they'd both be better off with living apart. Being without the other was the only way for both of them to be happy. They both knew it, but only Izuku had been ready to accept it.

Just then, Izuku felt something. It felt like a small warmth in his chest. It felt like One for All. He looked around, searching for a vestige, but found nothing. Quickly, the feeling vanished, and Izuku knew it was gone. He had briefly had One for All back, but he had lost it before he could do anything with it. Izuku cursed himself under his breath, but was able to play off as a cough.

"I'll get these to Nezu, so that he can make your adoption by UA an official thing. He's already approved of whatever ended up needing to happen, if it would end well, so all he needs to do is sign. I'll do that, and Izuku can get to class. Thank you for understanding, Ms. Midoriya," Aizawa said, before stepping out of the room.

Izuku sat in the seat, not wanting to move, but not wanting to stay still. He wanted to say something to Inko, to make her feel better about all of this, but nothing came to his mind as he tried to think of something that could possibly make her not feel like she probably was already feeling. Lost, hurt, angry. So, he left.

Stepping out into the hall led him to Aizawa, who was leaning against the wall to the side of the door. He started walking alongside Izuku, who regarded him strangely. The two shared a silence, Aizawa's favorite type of shared experience.

"That was one hell of a choice. Can you keep to it?" Aizawa asked, raising an eyebrow at Izuku.

"Yes. I have to," Izuku said, looking straight ahead.

"Alright. That night, when I tracked you down, what were you planning to do?" Aizawa asked.

"I was planning on staying with Uraraka. That's her apartment building. I had been there before, so I knew where to go if I needed it," Izuku said.

"You two are awfully close, aren't you?" Aizawa asked, a slight smirk on his face.

"There's nothing there. Not what you're thinking, at least. We're just good friends," Izuku said, somehow not blushing like a tomato at the insinuation.

Aizawa hesitated. He seemed to be thinking, like he didn't really believe Izuku. The boy supposed that it was reasonable, since Aizawa didn't seem to trust anybody but Present Mic and maybe Midnight, on a good day. Maybe that's what a life of pain and death did to a person? Maybe Aizawa had been through so much in his years as a Hero that it left him like … this. Cold. Distant. He finally shrugged, dismissing the idea of Izuku and Ochako.

"Alright. Hey, what happened to you back there?" Aizawa asked after a moment.

"Uh, what do you mean?" Izuku asked, cursing under his breath.

"You saw something. Or felt, maybe. I could tell you were searching the room for something, I just don't know what," Aizawa said, the two turning a corner.

"How can you tell that?" Izuku asked, a bead of sweat running down the back of his neck.

"Because that's exactly what I do every time I enter a room," Aizawa said, staring into Izuku's soul.

"Oh. I thought I heard something, so I kinda … looked for it. It turns out that I was just hearing things," Izuku said, brushing it off with a laugh.

Aizawa narrowed his eyes, looking at Izuku suspiciously, but backed off either way. The two kept walking, silently, until Izuku worked up the nerve to ask Aizawa what he had wanted the whole time. He had been trying to work himself up to asking Aizawa about the internships, and decided that then was as good a time as any.

"Can I talk to you about the internships?" Izuku asked.

"Shoot," Aizawa said.

"Well, I don't really feel like the people on my list can help me," Izuku said, calming himself down through a breathing exercise.

"Why not?" Aizawa asked.

"I just don't think that they know the mechanics and the science behind Quirks quite like who I had in mind," Izuku explained, getting Aizawa to raise an eyebrow at the answer.

"And who would that be?" Aizawa asked, actually intrigued.

"You," Izuku said, bracing himself for the 'no'.

"Huh. Any other reasons?" Aizawa asked.

"Um, I'd like to get more familiar with underground Heroics, since a bunch of teachers are Underground Heroes, the overwhelming majority in fact. Do you know why that is?" Izuku asked.

"That's by design. A lot of the teachers are Underground Heroes because we have certain skills that lend to teaching a bunch of trigger happy kids. A lot of our powers are either mental or they're specifically for neutralization and disarming. Like my Erasure and Midnight's Somnambulist. We're better equipped to handle a bunch of rowdy kids," Aizawa said.

"See? Like that! I want to be able to see things like that! I also think that you can help me with issues I've been having with my Quirk," Izuku said.

"You've been having issues with your Quirk and didn't tell me?" Aizawa asked, his capture weapon starting to levitate ominously.

"No. I mean, yes. I mean … I'm screwed, aren't I?" Izuku stammered, staring right ahead.

"Yes," Aizawa growled.

"It's nothing that can't be fixed with a little internship! I know that you can help me like nobody else can!" Izuku said, trying to change the subject away from his Quirk issues.

Aizawa seemed to be considering the deal, the small humming noise he made assuring Izuku that he was thinking about it. Izuku walked alongside the man, who stayed silent for a long time. The two walked, Aizawa thinking about the ways in which it would benefit him, and Izuku panicking about how it could go wrong.

"Alright. You can come and do your internship with me, but the second I feel like you're out of your depth, you're out. Do you hear me?" Aizawa said.

"Yes! I promise you're not gonna regret this, Aizawa!" Izuku said, pumping his fist.

"I already do," Aizawa said, rolling his eyes at his student's enthusiasm.

Izuku ran off, too excited to stay still. The bell rang, and Aizawa realized how long their talk had taken. It was time for Foundational Heroics, but he wasn't involved in the lesson All Might had planned. Maybe he'd go down to the training grounds and see for himself what 'issues' Izuku was having with his Quirk, or maybe he'd just go and have a nap in the teachers' lounge.

Aizawa didn't know what to think about Izuku Midoriya. On one hand, the kid was intelligent, and clearly had great potential as a Hero, as well as the drive needed to realize that potential. He was also suspicious of the boy's progress, having improved vastly since the start of the school year. Izuku had a rate of improvement that scared Aizawa, because he had the potential to surpass a Pro Hero in his second year at the rate he was going. With his Blackwhip and Float abilities supplementing his Super Strength, Izuku could easily become another All Might, and that was if he didn't spontaneously develop any new powers like he had with all of his other ones.

He was also concerned about Izuku. The boy was incredibly inexperienced, and it showed during the USJ Incident. He had started to break down under the mental strain of concentrating on four different things at once, so that was something he needed to get better at before he went out into the field as a Hero. If he slipped up like he had in the USJ, people could die. He could die. Aizawa wasn't ready to have that happen again, so he had agreed to take Izuku on as an intern.

There was also the matter of how he used his Super Strength. It was dangerously naive, and it needed to be fixed. To Aizawa, it was like he was just leaving himself open for attack whenever in combat. It needed correction. Maybe he'd just take Izuku on patrol, but they ran the risk of running into either too little to get any reasonable experience or running into too much for either of them to handle. There was little in-between, in Aizawa's experience.

"Hey, Shota. How you doin'?" Present Mic asked.

"Fine. I'm taking an intern, apparently," Aizawa said, turning around to face Mic.

"Holy, shit! The infamous Eraserhead, taking on a pupil! The last time you admitted you could tolerate someone for more than half an hour, we were back in school with Oboro!" Mic said, giggling before stopping.

Aizawa knew that look. It was the look that Mic got on his face whenever somebody talked about what had happened to Oboro, and he knew why. What happened haunted Mic, and he felt like he was responsible, feeling like if he had just gone with them on their internships, he could've saved him. Aizawa had dealt with his feelings regarding the event, or he thought he had, but it was all coming back to him.

"Come on, Mic. Lets go and get some food," Aizawa said, beginning to walk toward the lunchroom.