Izuku sat in one of UA's staff cars. It was spacious in the back, but Izuku had never felt so claustrophobic. All Might and Aizawa were with him, so he wasn't freaking out too bad, but he still let the frown on his face and the way he picked at the cast on his arm just be, instead of smiling like nothing was wrong. He watched the buildings go by as the driver made their way down the street. This neighborhood had felt familiar to Izuku, once upon a time, but now he'd grown used to his small apartment at the edge of UA's campus. It had been taken down yesterday, and he'd temporarily moved back into the room in the teacher's lounge while the new student dorms were being built. It should only have taken a few days, but it was still nostalgic to go back there and feel like he had all the way before the Sports Festival, when he'd first lived there. This was … not nostalgic, but it affected Izuku more intimately. He'd grown up walking to school on these streets, and to return was something that touched his heart in a few different ways that he couldn't fully describe.
They were going to see Inko. She needed to know what had happened, and know the truth of what she was, if she didn't already. Izuku hadn't so much as seen her face since he'd made the decision to remain with UA. This wasn't backtracking on that choice, he was still with UA as a ward, but he just felt like she deserved to know what had gone down with One for All and All for One. She was part of this story, too, and she deserved closure.
"Are you feeling alright?" All Might asked.
All Might was sitting across from Izuku, looking miserable about the state of his body. He was locked in a cast that was held up by a sling, which was similar to Izuku's, but much larger because of his taller frame. His other arm was bandaged up completely, but still had a range of motion, unlike the arm that All for One had completely decimated during their fight. It had been a little over a week since then, and it was still summer break, so Izuku had spent the time resting, and All Might and the rest of the staff at UA had been revising the dorms system and doing other teacher stuff that Izuku wasn't privy to. All Might seemed to be okay, but he'd have to sit down more often and couldn't talk for long before he'd have to wipe blood off his lips. Izuku was worried, but he'd kept his distance on that particular issue.
"Yeah. It's just … intimidating," Izuku said.
"Hmm, I get it. You'll be okay, though. I'm sure that there will be no ill will from her end," All Might said.
"Right, but it isn't just talking to her, it's the how. What in the world can act as a segue into 'you're a clone of an immortal supervillain that tricked you into having a child with him in order to achieve ultimate power'? It's not exactly small talk," Izuku said, sighing.
"I have faith that you'll find the right words in the moment. Even if you stumble, you usually pick up the pieces pretty well," Aizawa said, breaking his silence.
Izuku looked over at Aizawa and nodded, getting a blank stare back from his teacher. He looked back out the window to see that they were coming up on the apartment building that Inko lived in. It was exactly like Izuku remembered it, and it made his breath catch for a moment before Izuku cleared his throat and carried on like nothing had happened. The car pulled into the parking area and stopped in a random spot. Izuku swiveled around and unbuckled his seatbelt, then leaned into his seat while he took a deep breath.
When All Might gave him a reaffirming nod, Izuku opened the door and slid out, letting his right arm hang while he closed the car door behind him. He rose to his full height, which still wasn't very much even after all his physical development over the last year. Izuku looked out at the door he'd walked through every day of his life until April, and sighed. This was going to be difficult.
The three of them walked, Izuku guiding his two teachers, to the door in silence. Each of them knew what this meeting was about, and each of them knew that it had to go perfectly, or it was a bust. Both All Might and Aizawa had met Inko at least once in the past, so it wasn't like they were strangers, but they weren't familiar with her like Izuku was. He knew how she reacted to things. This had to be put the right way, or she'd spiral. When Izuku reached the door, he almost raised the arm in the cast to knock, but switched to his left and hesitantly knocked.
There was no shuffle behind the door, as Izuku had expected. He knew that Inko was excited for this, as Aizawa had told him when he'd gotten off the phone to arrange this with her. Izuku hadn't had the guts to organize this himself, but he could do this. He had to. But, he still knew his mother, and she'd likely been standing behind the door for the past four or five minutes as she expected their arrival. It was something she'd always done to Izuku's father when he'd gotten home from his overseas work. Realizing that those exact kinds of memories were the reason he was there to begin with, Izuku prepared for the door to open.
With a small whine from the hinges, the front door to the apartment swung open and revealed Inko. Izuku almost exclaimed when he saw her, because she looked completely different than when he'd last seen her. It was kind of an open secret between the Midoriyas that Inko's weight gain had been because of the binge eating she'd taken up in the years after Izuku's false diagnosis of Quirklessness. She'd felt guilty, Izuku knew it, and she'd eaten her feelings. Now, though, she looked a decade younger, like the past twelve years had never happened. It was kind of stunning to Izuku, how he could be so easily transported to his childhood by seeing his mother like this.
"Hi," Izuku said, waving with his good hand.
"Izuku," Inko almost whispered, putting her hands over her mouth.
She looked to hesitate for a moment, looking over him and landing on his hair. Inko's eyes went wide, but she moved onto the corners of Izuku's face, where his scars were. He met her eyes on her way down, seeing how bright the green in them was. Had it always been that way, or was it their time apart that was making it seem more vibrant than it really was? Inko's eyes then immediately snapped down to the cast on his arm, a frown forming as she examined it. She looked back up at Izuku and smiled a shaky smile, and he could tell that she wasn't sure what to do. When she finally recognized All Might and Aizawa behind Izuku, it was as if she snapped out of some trance, and stepped inside to let them in.
"Come in, please," Inko said.
Inko led the three into the living room and began hurriedly pouring some tea for everyone. Izuku walked through the short hall, passing by numerous pictures of himself as a child, slowly replaced by pictures of him closer in age to himself in the present, until he was looking at the picture Inko had taken of him holding his official acceptance letter for UA. He'd gotten the news from All Might when he'd taken the entrance exam, but UA still had to send him a letter informing him of requirements in equipment, and of course to get in contact with students about specifications on costuming for their practical Heroics classes. So, he'd gotten a letter on top of All Might's word, which had felt good for both the mother and son. Izuku felt the heartache that had driven him to fear this moment creep up on him, but he took some more deep, calming breaths and sat on the couch next to All Might and Aizawa.
As the three of them sat, Inko placed three cups of tea in front of them on the table. None of them reached to drink from them just yet. Izuku floundered for what to say, anything at all to start the conversation they needed to have, but was stopped when Inko began to speak instead.
"You've gotten taller. Your hair's longer, too. I like what you've done with it, the contrast is very nice," she said.
Izuku was reminded, for what felt like the millionth time, to get a haircut. He'd let it grow out messy, and it was beginning to fray at the ends. He needed a better shampoo than what the school could give him, that was for sure. Maybe he'd get the car to stop by the nearest store and he could get one on the way back to UA. Izuku realized that he'd started floating away, so internally grounded himself and zoned back in on the conversation.
"Uh, thanks. Would you believe it was accidental?" Izuku said, bringing his hand to his hairline and chuckling at himself. At her surprised frown, he added, "I mean at first. I obviously have it like this on purpose, now."
"How would that happen by accident?" Inko asked.
"Oh, it's one of the side-effects of the healing I underwent after the USJ incident. I first noticed it in May, but it probably started growing like this the moment I was healed and I just didn't catch it before then," Izuku explained.
"Huh. Well, I'm glad you're okay, hair coloring side-effects or not," Inko said, letting out a small laugh at the strangeness of her own sentence.
"You look … healthier than the last time we spoke. How have you been?" Izuku asked, pausing to consider his word choice carefully.
"I'm doing alright. I've taken to exercising in my spare time, and I've even been working on my Quirk!" Inko said, clapping her hands together in excitement.
Izuku felt himself stiffen at the mention of her Quirk. He hummed in faked interest, trying to get himself to relax. He knew that Aizawa was looking at him, his narrow eyes taking in every little detail. Izuku couldn't do or say anything without Aizawa knowing exactly what he meant, and while he was appreciative of that in a professional setting, it was only adding to his anxiety here. It was also making his arm hurt like hell, as he wasn't completely healed yet and his tension was making his still slightly broken arm flex. Izuku took calming breaths, and managed to settle down. It was a shame that the next thing Inko said brought him right back to square one.
"Oh, I'll show you how much my Quirk has improved!" she said, sending a jolt through Izuku's body and causing Aizawa to openly stare at him in annoyance. "Are you … okay, Izuku?" she asked, clearly noticing that he wasn't.
"There's a conversation that we need to have, Mom. One that involves you. Do you remember One for All?" Izuku said.
"Of course. How could I forget?" Inko replied.
"Good. Do you remember what All Might said about how it came to be?" he asked again.
"Something about two brothers at the beginning of Quirks. The older one gave the younger one a power that merged with the one he already had, and made your Quirk. Apparently, that older brother stuck around through the ages, but was killed by All Might before he passed One for All onto you," Inko recalled.
"Good enough. That older brother, All for One, didn't die when All Might killed him. I don't know if it was because of a Quirk, or if he was just that obsessed with One for All, but he was able to rise to power once again. When he did, he came after me instead, knowing that I bore all the power he wanted," Izuku admitted.
Inko immediately burst into tears when Izuku just casually brought up that All for One had come for him. Izuku was fairly numb to it now, but he could understand how someone who both knew how powerful someone who could steal Quirks was, and had seen with All Might's skinny form what he could do with that power, could be upset upon learning that her son was targeted by that monster. Izuku himself had been anxious about it, but it no longer upset him, it was kind of just annoying that he'd had to miss out on some parts of his education to fight a man that should've died over a hundred years ago.
"He hunted me, put me into a position where I was vulnerable, and threw everything he had at me to steal me away, all so he could pitch his idea for us to join forces and work together using all of our Quirks to topple society like he tried to do with his brother," Izuku said.
"Why would he think you'd join him?" Inko asked, unaware that she'd led Izuku right where he was going with that whole rambling speech.
"Because Hisashi Midoriya was All for One," Izuku said, meeting his mother's eyes as he spoke.
The reaction was instant. Inko's eyes went wide and she inhaled sharply, trying to mask her shock with a calculating mask. It wasn't working, though, as tears started to flow and sobs caused Inko to shake as she gripped the arms of her chair tightly. She shook her head, but didn't look away from Izuku, who was simply sitting there and wishing he were literally anywhere else.
"That can't be true. You've made a mistake," Inko said, staying true to her beliefs. Izuku couldn't blame her.
It was then that Aizawa leaned forward in his seat next to Izuku. He had a serious expression on his face, and looked to be thinking. He stayed that way for a few moments as Inko collected herself, and then took a calm breath in and looked Inko in the eyes.
"It very well may be a falsehood, but that is what we're here to determine. He told Izuku things that only you can verify. For instance, what can you tell us about your childhood?" Aizawa said.
"I … grew up in an orphanage. I never knew my parents, but I found a home when I was twelve. The Tanaka family took me in because my Quirk is useful for housework. They never let me experiment with it enough to make it grow, as they said it would fill my head with nonsense. I moved out when I was able, and built my new life starting with medical school. That didn't pan out at first, but I eventually went back when it became clear that Hisashi wasn't going to be rejoining our family," Inko said.
"What's your earliest memory?" Aizawa asked.
"I would have to say that my first memory is pain. A kind of pain that was all over, and so numbing that I just wanted to lay down somewhere and die. But, the police picked me up and took me to the orphanage I spent the next eight years in," Inko said.
"Your first memory is of when you were four?" All Might asked, and Izuku couldn't help but agree with what he was truly asking.
"Yes. I think what happened to get me into that place in life must have been so horrible that I blocked it out. I'm sorry for not being more helpful," Inko said, cupping her hands with her face as she flushed in embarrassment.
"Don't feel sorry. It's an awful thing that happened to you. You weren't in control of that, and you can't be asked to take responsibility for what …" Izuku said, cutting himself off before he revealed what All for One had told him. This was going to give him a heart attack if he didn't relax.
"Thank you, Izuku. What does this have to do with Hisashi, though?" Inko asked.
"He told us something about your origin that is … disturbing, for multiple reasons. He told us that you were the result of an experiment he did around the time when you were born. All for One told us that he grew you and wanted you to be another him, but when you were yourself instead, he threw you away. I'm thinking that he waited until you were four to see what your Quirk would end up being, but then erased your memory and kicked you to the curb," Aizawa explained.
"The timelines match up for it to be the case. He was intrigued by my master's family, and once he killed her and drove me out of Japan, he had time for you to be born that same year. He likely accelerated the growth of his tests using his many Quirks, as well as having the help of anyone he could threaten, which was everybody," All Might added.
"We don't want you to be upset, we just thought that you should know these things if they're true," Izuku chimed in, seeing that Inko was beginning to look lost.
Inko looked like she was about to explode. Izuku could tell that she needed to just vent, but couldn't. She needed to hear the rest of it. Inko took calming, grounding breaths and eventually focused back on the task at hand, her eyes landing on Izuku's own.
"You're telling me that I was made in a lab? I'd say I can't believe it, but I was able to accept that the number one Hero in Japan gave my boy a Quirk!" Inko said, before catching herself and growing panicked. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to blurt that out in front of—" she tried to say, glancing between Izuku, All Might and Aizawa.
"It's fine, Aizawa knows," Izuku said with a laugh.
"Oh, thank goodness," Inko sighed.
The four of them sat in silence for a while, a serious look coming over Inko's face. Izuku found himself mirroring it as he waited for her true response to being told she was a clone. It seemed to have needed a little bit of time to truly register in her mind, because Izuku could tell when it finally hit her. She inhaled harshly, her shoulders coming up and tensing. She began staring directly at a place on the wall and not blinking, likely hoping it would keep the tears from spilling over. Izuku tried to meet her eyes, but she wouldn't look away from that one point behind him. Maybe this was a mistake.
"Am I … a real person?" Inko asked, her voice faint.
"Of course you are. Just because you were made for a purpose, doesn't mean you're somehow less alive, or real. All for One made you, but he didn't make you who you are today. Your formative years without him are what counted the most, and they allowed you to become who you truly were. For better or for worse. That's real, and so are you," Izuku said, feeling himself tear up slightly at the sight of Inko's pain. It was always that way between them; when one got going, the other was soon to follow suit.
"So … what? How does this all tie back to him being Hisashi?" Inko asked.
"Right. He decided that the project that you came from was a failure because it didn't produce a Quirk that could steal other Quirks from a distance. You can only pull physical objects to you, not the kind of conceptual core of what makes a Quirk. So, he let you go. But, he wanted to try again. This time, the good old fashioned way," Izuku said, frowning intently at the reminder of just how sick in the head All for One had to be to go through with all this.
"He put together a persona, called 'Hisashi Midoriya'," Izuku continued. "You know the rest," he added shortly, not wanting to say it.
"Why?" Inko asked, her tone as fast and charged with an uncomfortable energy as Izuku's.
"For me. He still wanted that Quirk that could take others from a distance, and he thought that if he couldn't engineer a Quirk like that, he'd try the next best thing. There's a theory in the field of Quirk analysis called the Singularity. It basically states that as Quirk genes continue to mix and combine in unpredictable pairings, the resulting powers will eventually become so strong and uncontrollable that the human body doesn't have the robust nature to handle it, and Quirks themselves start killing their users at first awakening, like the world's deadliest genetic disorder. There are already signs of that occurring, such as One for All's breach of containment with the past users' Quirks, Bakugo's perfect mix of Mitsuki and Masaru's minor powers making Explosion of all things, and even Kaminari, a boy in my class, who can't use his Quirk much without it literally cooking his own brain. If he could get the ability to take Quirks and minor telekinesis to merge in the way the Singularity Theory describes, then he'd have his ultimate power. He'd be able to take the Quirks of others without even getting near them, and he'd be truly unstoppable then," Izuku rambled.
"But, you didn't develop a Quirk?" Inko asked hesitantly, finally looking Izuku in the eye.
"I didn't develop that Quirk," Izuku corrected, causing Inko to stiffen in shock once again. "In truth, I do have an inborn power, but the source of my genes, a human from an age where everybody had what today calls a Quirkless body and a very close copy of that same person, caused me to inherit that same trait. I have a Quirk, it's just that I was tested for it the wrong way, and that was by design. All for One paid the doctor who examined me to give a purposefully obtuse examination, looking over what would obviously have been a Quirk Factor in favor of the toe test. He did it because my power is special in the same way that One for All is, that it can't be stolen by him. Because of that, he deemed the project a failure once more and ditched us, leaving us to become what we did over the course of those ten years," he elaborated.
"Oh, at any other time I would gush over how smart my baby is, but I have to ask; what's your Quirk, Izuku?" Inko said.
"I'm calling it 'Quirk of Holding'. To understand what it does, you need to understand what happens when you give a normal person a Quirk. In short, if it doesn't make you braindead, or a Nomu with extremely limited brain function, it eats away at a person's life force, drastically shortening their lifespan and ability toward the end of that lifespan. The fourth user of One for All died this way, passing at age forty from old age. If that was just the fourth user, imagine what would happen to a Quirked tenth user. I imagine they wouldn't survive the year. But, my Quirk is kind of an isolation of one of All for One's required secondary mutations in order to use his own power. As part of his Quirk, All for One is immune to that life-leeching aspect of possessing multiple Quirks, and he passed that down to me. That's my power, that I can have as many Quirks as I'm given. It's why One for All functions the way it does with me, and will continue to do so in the future when I pass it on, as my Quirk will stay with the power," Izuku explained.
"That's a wonderful ability, and it's allowed you to become the truest version of you that you can be. I see it in the way you talk and carry yourself, now. You're finally following your own path, and I can only say that I'm proud of you," Inko said, smiling softly at her son.
"Thanks," Izuku said, sending her a smile back.
"Why the name, though?" she asked, furrowing her brow in a puzzled expression.
"Oh, it's just a reference to a game I play with some friends on the weekends," Izuku deflected. "How do you feel, knowing this stuff?" he asked.
Inko sat for a moment, her shoulders becoming less tense than they'd been since Izuku had dropped the bombshell of her husband's true identity. She took a few silent seconds to simply think, and Izuku almost thought that she'd gone catatonic from the shock. Izuku caught Aizawa's expression dropping into a special kind of tiredness, and Izuku could understand that. It wasn't really Aizawa's style to do home visits like this, especially to discuss what they were talking about. All Izuku needed to do was inform Inko of her origin and be there for her if she needed it. He could do that.
"I feel … okay," Inko said.
"Are you sure?" Izuku asked.
"Yes. What you've told me is awful, a man creating someone out of a sick desire for power, and then further using them for that same goal. But, I am not what he made, and neither are you. He created both of us for his own ends, but we never needed him. We've lived a life without him, and we'll continue to do that. I just hope that we can do that together," Inko said, hesitantly smiling.
Izuku gasped softly as he realized what she was asking. Did he still want to live at UA, or could they begin to mend their relationship and live in the same house again? The dorm system threw a wrench into that, though, and Izuku knew that. He smiled softly, knowing that he'd probably have truly thought about it if he wasn't going to be living on campus anyway by the end of the week. Izuku sighed, disappointed that they hadn't had this talk sooner, but aware that it was his shame at how things had ended that had kept them from meeting sooner.
"UA's constructing a dormitory system as we speak. Even if he said yes, it would be for a few days until it was practically necessary for him to leave again. Nezu may say that the dorms are optional, but he'd try very hard to persuade anybody who said no," Aizawa said in Izuku's place. The way Aizawa spoke about Nezu sometimes was disturbing, like their relationship was more like Izuku's had been with Katsuki until recently, a tormenter and the tormented. That thought made Izuku shiver, and he distracted himself by making his own suggestion.
"The school's letting students visit family every so often, though. Maybe I could come around more often, or … at all," Izuku said, laughing off his absence from the home he'd grown up in.
"I'd like that," Inko said, smiling a large, bright smile that forced one onto Izuku's face as well. "Oh, I forgot to ask. Where is All for One now?" she added.
"The deepest pits of Tartarus, where he'll stay if he knows what's good for him. During our fight, his breathing mask was destroyed, which meant that he was vulnerable. From there, it was only a matter of time before he was weakened to a degree where I could keep him down," All Might said.
"Good. I couldn't fathom that even the man he pretended to be would hurt anyone, but I'm glad he was stopped. Oh, this has all been so illuminating and exhausting. I can't imagine what it took to get that information," Inko said, holding her face in her hands once again.
Izuku's good hand instinctively went to the cast around his right arm, hung in the sling against his chest. He didn't exactly mean to do it, it was just that he got these odd phantom pains whenever he thought about the events of those few days where he'd sustained his injuries. The doctors were barely able to heal him to the extent they had, and he was grateful for their services, but there had been some of him they just couldn't save. All for One's scheming had taken the completeness of Izuku's body from him, and he still didn't know how to feel about that, really. But, Inko saw that he immediately gave himself away, even if it was subconscious.
"He's the one who did that to you?" she asked, a scandalous tone to her voice.
"Uh, yeah. He's the one who orchestrated every attack on me this semester. From the USJ, to the Sports Fest, the internship, the summer camp where he finally got me and then our final battle where I was kinda running on adrenaline and anger alone. All of this …" Izuku said, pointing to the white in his hair, the scars on his face and now the cast on his arm. "... was made to happen by him. He's been troubling us for a long time, but we're free of him now that he's five hundred meters below sea level on an island that nobody can enter or leave without a million security checks," he added.
"Well, if you're sure you're safe. I'm so happy we could have this chance to talk," Inko said, beginning to tear up.
"Me too," Izuku laughed, feeling tears prick at the corners of his own eyes.
It wasn't long before the three had to leave. Izuku knew that they'd only get an hour or so outside campus due to the new rules being put into place about outings now that the dorms were becoming a schoolwide feature. He'd always had to check in with someone before leaving, but now everyone was going to be subjected to those same rules, and even more strictly considering why these rules were being implemented. It was hard to forget the hole that Iida had left in the class, but it was easy to appreciate his influence in the time he'd been with them, and the foundations that the class had built with each other through his passing. He'd always be missed, not only as a friend and classmate, but also as an example of the first experience with death for the vast majority of the class. Death was something that started things as much as it ended them, and Izuku thought he understood that after seeing it happen in front of his own eyes.
In the car on the way back to UA, Izuku cried. He wasn't proud of it, but he also didn't try to stop it either. He just let it happen, as he should've let this whole experience happen a long time ago. He managed to get everything out of his system before they pulled up to the main campus, borrowing a spare handkerchief from All Might to wipe away his tears, and he was grateful for All Might and Aizawa being discreet about it when asked by Kayama why Izuku looked the way he probably felt, miserable yet satisfied.
He slept well that night, knowing that he'd begun to mend things between him and Inko. Now, there was only one loose thread to tie up. Now, he needed to speak to Tenko.