They set out into the hills surrounding Nagiso the morning after hearing little Yuki's story about encountering a Nomu up there. They planned to start with the castle ruins she'd mentioned as the spot where this encounter had taken place. An upside to searching over a wide area with so few people at their disposal? Izuku finally got to fly. He didn't mean to discount his little aerial tour with Yuki the night before, as that had been important to him for other reasons, but he was finally getting to just go up and not come down for a while. He savoured the fast winds blowing against his face, the windchill that soaked into his bones and was counteracted by the steady comfort of One for All flowing through his veins, and the view of the little mountain town from a bird's eye view. He almost got distracted by it all, but he managed to stay on task and quickly fly over to the castle ruins they'd pinpointed on a map — too quickly for his liking, but that's what he got with twenty percent of One for All. It wasn't a completely different kind of power and speed that he'd managed to attain, but making the jump from about seventeen percent meant that he was still in an adjustment period where he overshot or underestimated the power sometimes, so it was best to iron out all those kinks at times like these, when he could test out just how fast he was.

He arrived at the castle ruins a few minutes after he lifted off. It was about a kilometre away, so it took him barely any time at all — the only reason it took him as long as it did was because he took a detour to enjoy his time in the air. He could've done it in seconds. Izuku landed on the ground, decorated with dead leaves that hadn't degraded yet from autumn, and looked around, taking in the sights of the landmark before the others got there. It wasn't so much a castle as it was a little clearing with a picnic setting and a few other structures dotted around the space. It was about twenty metres across, maybe a little more, and most of the space was empty, so it was perfect for running around in a game of tag or something. The air was so crisp up at the peak of the hill that Izuku just had to take a deep breath of it. He wondered how a little kid would ever want to leave this place. Izuku was barely able to ignore the charm of it, and he was only here on business.

Something tugged on Izuku's gut. It wasn't Danger Sense, but that nameless feeling again, that bad sensation that had bothered him for weeks on end. It was so intense that Izuku thought he might have thrown up, and he fell to his knees clutching his stomach. He looked around for any sign of something bad, anything to explain why this feeling was coming back, but as he looked around, there was nothing that would tell Izuku why this was happening right then and there, of all the times and places. Again, looking around at this place, Izuku felt a connection to this place, like he'd been there before. He wondered if it was One for All yet again supplying him with information he shouldn't know. That only meant one thing, though — one of the past users of One for All, or All for One, had been here in the past. That was the only way it had ever worked. One for All stockpiled more than power, it was clear now. But it could only give him something that it had stockpiled, like the Quirks of the past holders, or their consciousnesses, or in some unique circumstances, some of their memories and experiences, like this. That meant that he should ask the vestiges, right?

Izuku thought about summoning one or all of the vestiges to talk before the others arrived, but he didn't go through with it. He was still feeling a little bit defeated after his argument with Sankitsuo in front of everyone. As well, Izuku didn't want to use them as a crutch. He needed to make good decisions on his own. That was part of why Aizawa had taken him on for winter break — because he didn't think Izuku was capable of that as he was. Well, Aizawa had been right back when he'd given Izuku his evaluation after the joint training battles with 1-B. Don't stand around and talk when you could be doing something.

He pushed Danger Sense's range out as far as he could, just like he had yesterday. Izuku tuned his parameters slightly, which he wasn't sure would actually work. He imagined it like a radio, turning the dials to get the exact frequency he wanted to receive. He even went so far as to mimic the movement with his hands, twisting invisible knobs that caused his senses to shift and give him different inputs. Even when tried his best to hone in on what he was looking for — possibly a brain wave slower or weaker than others, or maybe even frequencies akin to a living person while asleep — Izuku got nothing. He reset his dials back to their default setting, which told them to perceive danger to himself and nothing more. Izuku sighed. Even when he made progress with his Quirks, All for One found a way to circumvent that and stay out of his reach. It was getting annoying how even after All Might beat him, at the cost of his own power as the Symbol of Peace, All for One was still finding ways to get in the way. Would it ever change? Could All for One have so many contingency plans that Izuku would never run out of challenges? He knew thinking like that was bad — he was supposed to be the hopeful hero after all — but he thought never asking those questions at all was also bad in its own way.

The others arrived shortly after he pulled Danger Sense back in. They all walked into the clearing and looked around, trying to spot something that clearly wasn't there. Izuku was about to tell them that he still couldn't sense any Nomu, and about the return of One for All's strange interference, but Aizawa looked over and seemed to see something that Izuku hadn't noticed. Aizawa jogged over and dug around in a bush, pulling out something chunky and shiny. Izuku realised it was metal, a port for some kind of tube that would be plugged into a larger machine. With a start, Izuku recognised it. It was the same style of plug that All for One's life support system had been back when they'd spoken down in his lair under Kamino Ward. Was it the same technology? Izuku thought it wasn't too far-fetched that the same machines that kept the Nomu stable long enough for them to reanimate could be used to sustain a dying man's still living body. Did that mean All for One was kind of like the Nomu? Maybe. That led to another question that Izuku wasn't sure he'd like the answer to. Was All for One trying to restore his own body to its prime with the experimentation on the Nomu? It could've been possible, but Izuku didn't like the image in his head of a healthy All for One. All Might had barely been able to defeat him both times, so if All for One had gotten his healthy body back while All Might had continued to grow older, then it would've been disastrous. It was probably better not to dwell on that possibility.

"That's the same kind of equipment we pulled off the Nomu from Kamino," Tsukauchi said.

"It must've fallen off the Nomu that was here," Aizawa said, examining the tube closely.

"The Kamino Nomu were in storage — they weren't active like the ones that you fought before that. If these Nomu had the same technology on them and it simply fell off, then I think that might confirm our theory that this new batch of Nomu have been here for a long time and have been sleeping. Now, that begs another, more important question."

"Who woke them up?" All Might concluded for his friend.

"Precisely. It could have been an associate of All for One, or the man himself just before he was incarcerated, or someone else completely who managed to stumble across the Nomu by chance. We really don't know," Tsukauchi said.

Izuku had the worst kind of hunch. He had an idea about who was behind this, but it was horrible. That night in Kamino, he'd only managed to persuade some of the Vanguard. Tenko, Stain, Toga, Bubaigawara, they'd all volunteered. Dabi — who was apparently unidentifiable due to his fingerprints having burned off and multiple skin grafts and organ transplants messing with a DNA scan, which Izuku thought shouldn't have been a problem, so suspected a Quirk had been used to tamper with him — had been unconscious at the time, as had Kurogiri, so he'd skipped the 'asking for permission' part and just taken them with him. There were three others, though. Spinner, Magne, and Mr Compress had all refused to go with him, and Izuku had been on a bit of a time crunch, so he chose not to fight them and get out of there with the members of the Vanguard he could immediately convince so that he knocked out two goals with one move; he'd gotten himself away from All Might and All for One's battle so All Might could go all out without risking hurting him, and Izuku had eliminated those he took with him as a threat. He thought it had been pretty smart at the time, but could Magne, Compress and Spinner be working to reclaim what they'd lost in Kamino? Could they be trying to revive the Vanguard with just them and a bunch of Nomu? If so, was it Izuku's fault that this was happening, because he let them go back then?

"Young Midoriya?" All Might said, pulling Izuku's train of thought toward himself. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. What's up?" Izuku asked. He noticed that the others were looking at him as well, and fought the urge to hide his face behind his cowl.

"We were talking about spreading out and searching the area for any more pieces like the one Eraser found. I was asking you'd join Gran Torino and do an aerial sweep of the countryside," All Might explained.

"Right. I'll get on that," Izuku said quickly. He immediately brought One for All out and pushed it to twenty percent, which was more comfortable now then when he'd first done it during the licensing test. Green lightning crackled around him, and crouched down to jump. He felt so small when every one of his superiors stared at him like he shouldn't be there, and he needed to get away from it.

"Wait!" All Might said over the rush of blood in Izuku's ears.

One for All powered down with a few more crackles and pops of power, and Izuku stood back up with a puzzled expression on his face. All Might studied that expression for a moment, and sighed. His gaunt face was unreadable, which was a surprise to Izuku. All Might had become someone close to him over the last few years, and so to be unable to guess what he was thinking when he was normally so expressive came out of left field for Izuku. All Might turned to the others and hesitated, seemingly searching for the right words to say.

"You all should start your search. I need to speak with Young Midoriya alone," All Might said.

The others didn't say a word, but looked between All Might and Izuku sceptically. Izuku thought he saw Aizawa frowning under his scarf, but couldn't be sure. They left, setting out in different directions — Tsukauchi and Aizawa searched from the ground, and Gran Torino searched from the skies. That left Izuku alone with All Might, which was normally a comfort, but now it proved to be more than a little unsettling to him, as he had no idea what the man was thinking, or what he wanted to talk about. Finally, All Might spoke up.

"Are you really alright?"

"Of course," Izuku said.

"What were you thinking about?" All Might asked.

"That piece of tech. I recognised it from his lair." Izuku said. He felt a twinge of pain in his right elbow, and shook it out.

"Okay," All Might said. He looked sad for some reason, like he'd just realised something. "You'll tell me if you're not okay, won't you?"

"Yeah." What was this about? "It's just … I can't help but feel like this is partially my fault. I can deal with that, but it still doesn't feel good, you know?"

"Why would this be your fault?"

"One for All has been giving me the weirdest kind of intuition, mostly about the past users and things related to them. They're not premonitions, just information," Izuku admitted.

"What do you mean by that?" All Might asked with unmasked shock on his face.

"I knew who Gran Torino was without being told. I knew Tenko Shimura's real name when nobody else knew he existed. I felt that something bad was coming for weeks before I knew about this case. And I have a feeling that the three Vanguards we didn't detain in Kamino are involved in this," Izuku said.

"And you trust this feeling?" All Might asked. He seemed to be adjusting to the knowledge that One for All had yet another facet that he was previously unaware of.

"That's the thing. I don't know if I want to trust it. The first time it happened was with Tenko Shimura, and that knowledge didn't come from any of the past wielders. Only one person who's touched One for All ever knew his name, and that person is All for One. It means I'm connected to him, too, and I don't want to be. I don't want to lean into this connection if it means I further that bond with him," Izuku explained.

All Might was silent for a moment. He never took his eyes away from Izuku, which really made him want to fidget with his hands or just do something other than stand there in silence, but he resisted the urge and stayed still while All Might collected his thoughts.

"I won't tell you what the right or wrong choice is, because I wouldn't know. I can only encourage you to do what you think is right, and try your best to adjust as you go so that you do as much good with this prescience you now have. Let me rephrase; do you feel that this is a power you shouldn't trust?" All Might said.

"I don't think so. I think this is One for All trying to help me somehow. It's just so unlike all the other powers this Quirk has given me that it's a little scary. Does that sound silly?" Izuku said.

"Not at all. It's actually reasonable. When you manifested Blackwhip for the first time, I was terrified for that exact reason. Something new had happened because the Quirk I held for most of my life had a hidden aspect that I'd had no idea existed. It changed my entire view of what One for All was, and what it could be. I think it's clear at this point, Young Midoriya, that One for All has vastly exceeded what I ever thought it was, and that you are now more knowledgeable about what you are capable of with the power than I could ever be. You're its master now. You decide how you use what it gives you. If this is a power you want to explore, then go ahead. If not, then I'm the last person who'll blame you for wanting to close off a connection with All for One. I'll trust your judgement, just like I always have," All Might said.

"Thank you," Izuku sighed. "Really. Thank you."

"Of course. Guiding you is my purpose now. I'll always be here for you." All Might smiled and gave Izuku a pat on the shoulder.

Izuku forced himself to release all the tension he'd been ignoring and letting build up over the past few weeks. He rolled his shoulders and sighed heavily. One for All crackled around him as he powered up again, nodding to All Might as a gesture to stand back. He crouched down and wondered how fast he'd be with Fa Jin, if he could use it. No, he didn't think he'd ever wield that power, and he didn't really think he wanted to anymore. Fa Jin was a power that had been used to kill an unknown amount of people, and the third user wanted him to do the same. He'd never use that power, and he'd never use the abilities he had to kill either. It was the same for this new prescience, as All Might had called it. Izuku was going to try for a clean break with these strange abilities that he didn't want. As he crouched, he imagined a door. It was a vault door, like the one in the vestiges' throne room that they all congregated in front of. Izuku opened it in his mind, and imagined Sankitsuo and All for One, as stand-ins for their powers, inside the vault. Their images were sharply clear in his mind, the rough scar tissue of All for One's face and the spiky hairdo held back by the third user's bandana. He then closed the vault and locked it, a heavy clunk sound echoing across his mind.

For a moment, nothing happened. He felt something pushing on his shoulders, like something was trying to resist this. Izuku concentrated and pushed back, sweat beading on his forehead, and then it happened. Suddenly, it was like a weight was gone from his mind, and he could think more clearly than he could before, as if some fog had dissipated. The subtle tug in his gut was gone. He'd locked those powers away, and now he had nothing to worry about from within himself. He could finally really focus on everything else going on because he wasn't fighting against himself. Izuku looked over at All Might and smiled, which his mentor returned.

Izuku then took off, leaping up into the air and letting his twenty percent of One for All and Float carry him high into the sky. He figured he looked like a shooting star of green lightning as he used Air Force to shift his trajectory and turn in mid-air. He saw a blur of yellow some distance away to the east, Gran Torino flying around with his Quirk, so Izuku figured he'd go west. He flew off, taking in the view of the mountains and the countryside and the little town, and smiled.

He flew around for hours, and he had to say that this region was beautiful, but he didn't find any Nomu, nor any other pieces of machinery that could've fallen off of them. His first idea was that he was too high up, so he flew closer to the treetops of the forest outside Nagiso, and even under them for a time, but he had no luck with that, either. He figured slowing down would help, too, so he dialled it back to about fifteen percent and cruised along. He scared a few animals, a lot of birds and a few badgers, but again found nothing of note. Izuku was beginning to think these Nomu were leading them on a wild goose chase on purpose. They weren't that intelligent, though. There had to be a puppet master, otherwise the puppets wouldn't be able to move. If only he knew what that person was like, so that he could try to track them with Danger Sense, if that was even how it worked. He could try to hone in on the Vanguards, if he wanted to follow that lead, but … maybe.

Eventually, Izuku landed in a clearing he was sure was empty. He let Danger Sense look for any signs of life to be sure, and there was nothing. He used Float to sit in the air a few metres up, and meditated. He conjured the image of the radio again. A dial for range and a dial for frequency. He cranked the range out to its absolute maximum, about three kilometres, and fiddled with the frequency. He chose Magne to search for first, since she'd been the most … irreverent of the three Vanguards he'd let go. He imagined an energetic frequency, erratic like a heartbeat, but strong at all times. He used Blackwhip to push against a tree and make himself slowly spin around, so that he'd act as a kind of compass, where true north was his target. He thought he got a blip as he turned and looked in the direction that the town was in, and when he stopped his momentum with another use of Blackwhip and looked back there, he got another faint ping, but then it vanished. He launched himself up into the sky and looked in that direction, and just like he'd thought, he could see Nagiso peeking out behind two smaller mountains, including the one that held the castle ruins on its peak. He'd started closer to them than he was now. He had to regroup with everyone and tell them.

Izuku flew at top speed, Air Force pushing him forward like thunderclaps during a rainstorm. He got closer and closer to the castle ruins where they'd started their search from, and he realised that after hours of constantly flicking his fingers to propel himself that they were getting sore and tired. He ignored it and pushed on. About three-quarters of the way there, his attention was caught by a little house at the end of a long road amid the hills. He felt a tug toward that house, and figured that his little 'lock it away' procedure hadn't worked so well at keeping One for All from telling him things after all. Why was that house important, though? It had to be … wait. Could it be? Maybe. It would fit. He was beginning to get a really big idea, which would be ridiculously important if he was right. Reluctantly, Izuku ignored that tug, even though it felt like leaving a limb behind, and flew over to the castle ruins and landed next to All Might.

"What is it, Young Midoriya?" All Might asked upon his sudden return.

"I got someone in Danger Sense!" Izuku said. "I was wondering if maybe I couldn't catch the Nomu in my Danger Sense because it works off the electrical signals produced by peoples' brains, and Nomu don't really think in the way we do, so they slip under the radar. So then I thought about my theory that the Vanguard are involved, and I tried to ping one of them, Magne. It worked! I got a ping, and I think I know where it leads!"

"Good work," All Might said with a grin. He pulled out his phone and issued a quick order into it to converge on the castle ruins. Izuku heard the order in his own earpiece, so he guessed it was to Aizawa, Gran Torino and Tsukauchi.

Soon, all the heroes had regrouped, and Izuku explained his idea.

"It could be," Aizawa said.

"It's the first real lead we've had," Tsukauchi admitted.

"So what are we sitting around here for? Let's get these guys!" Gran Torino exclaimed, shooting up into the air in his impatience.

"I agree, let's go!" All Might said with a gleam in his eye that Izuku hadn't seen since that night in Kamino.

Unfortunately, 'going' meant driving so they could all stay together. Tsukauchi and Gran Torino took the front seats, which meant that Izuku was squished into a corner while Aizawa and All Might, two of the tallest men Izuku knew, took up the other two seats in the back. The drive only took about ten minutes, but still, it was just another reminder of how small he was.

Finally, they pulled up to a house built atop one of the hills. Izuku and the others got out of the car and gave a sceptical eye to the home they had arrived at. He pulled up his cowl and took a deep breath. This was his moment of truth. Was he right, or was he wrong? Izuku noticed a few different things as the group walked up the driveway and toward the front door. The house had overgrowth climbing up the walls and it was beginning to fall into disarray with the paint chipping away on the fence that marked the property, which were details he couldn't see from up in the air so far away, so Izuku guessed the house was old. It had the same kind of style as the rest of Nagiso, so he guessed it had been built during or before the Dawn of Quirks, like the rest of the town. The thing that really got Izuku's attention was that there was a mailbox with a name on it — Shigaraki. Izuku pointed this out to the others, and received a subdued congratulations on his hunch from his teachers, as if they hated that he was right. He didn't take it personally — so did he.

Entering the house was intense. There was a quiet discussion about who was going to go through the door first, Izuku or Aizawa, but Aizawa didn't stand around and wait for it to be resolved before kicking the door off its hinges and running inside. Izuku had really wanted to be first through the door since he could take the most hits out of their group, but that worked, too. Izuku noticed that Aizawa did the same thing as way back during their internship last May, where he'd entered a room and then immediately swept his gaze across everything to catch everyone inside in his Erasure right off the bat. The only differences were that this time, there were no people inside, and he dismissed his Quirk much faster than he'd needed to back then. The group followed Aizawa inside after that, and were shocked at what they found.

It was a normal house. There was nothing out of the ordinary. There wasn't even any dust to give them an idea about how long this place had gone uninhabited. It was just a perfectly normal home. But then, why did the nameplate outside say Shigaraki?

"I believe that I can answer that," a voice said from behind Izuku.

Izuku spun and pointed his fist out to prepare a blast of Air Force if he needed it. Instead, what he found was the ghostly visage of Yoichi, the first user of One for All, forming out of white mist. Aizawa, Gran Torino and Tsukauchi looked at Izuku funny, and he realised that he'd gotten so comfortable with the vestiges of One for All appearing to him that he'd forgotten that only he could see or hear them. To them, he'd just threatened a wall. He lowered his fist and laughed it off.

"Sorry about that. I'm just—" Izuku tried to explain, but was cut off.

"The first user, right?" All Might asked, throwing Izuku for a loop.

"How'd you know that? Can you … see him?" Izuku asked. He looked at All Might in shock.

"No, but there's a …" All Might seemed to search for the right words. He was staring right at where Yoichi was in Izuku's perception, but not at his eyes or head, just at the general area. "There's a pressure in the air right there that I recognise. I did see the vestiges very briefly in my youth, but my experience was nothing like your ability to speak with them at will. This is the first time I've been anywhere close to sensing them after passing One for All onto you, though. This is truly a bizarre phenomenon."

"Right. Well, I guess I should explain to you two as well, since you're already in the know about One for All," Izuku said, turning to Gran Torino and Tsukauchi, who were gaping at him and All Might. "I can kinda talk to the people who've used the power before me in my dreams, and sometimes when I'm awake, too. Except for All Might, for some weird reason. It's probably because he's alive, or because he was Quirkless before inheriting the power and didn't pass on a complete vestige because he didn't contribute a Quirk Factor to One for All, or because he was the most recent user and his vestige hasn't quite taken shape yet. One of those three, I think. But, yeah." He turned back to Yoichi, which felt oddly embarrassing with a lot of people watching, like something private that only he got to have had just become very public against his will. He felt bad for not giving Gran Torino or Tsukauchi any time to process his reveal that ghosts were kind of real, but Yoichi wouldn't have appeared if it wasn't urgent. "What is it?"

"I know why this place, this house and this town, have triggered One for All so deeply. You recognise it, but don't know why, yes?" Yoichi said.

"Yeah. It's like I've been here before, but I know I've never been outside Shizuoka a few days ago," Izuku admitted, which again, was kind of embarrassing to say in front of adults.

Yoichi smiled, but his expression quickly became something more bittersweet, and looked around like he suddenly saw more than Izuku could. "He built this place for me. You're standing in All for One's childhood home."

"All for One's … childhood home?" Izuku stammered. All the others that couldn't hear Yoichi startled at that as well. "That explains the name, but …"

"Yes. We stayed here for a number of years while we were growing up. He wanted to travel and make new friends, but I wanted him to settle down so we could live a normal life as normal children. He could not, so he had this place constructed and left me behind. I lived here for years, and he returned many times, for an entire year once. That's why you're having such a strong reaction to this town, and this house. As far as I know, neither of us ever came back here once he came and whisked me away to Tokyo, where I spent the rest of my life. I'm sorry, Izuku," Yoichi explained.

"I get it now. Thank you," Izuku said.

Yoichi faded away, and All Might finally took a breath. It looked like sensing a vestige while not being in possession of One for All had really rattled him. Izuku sighed, too. He'd been led astray by the power he'd failed to subdue. He wasn't led to that house by Danger Sense, it had been the near-supernatural prescience that One for All was developing in him that had driven him to go there. The moment of truth had passed. Izuku was wrong, and he said as much. The others nodded, clearly disappointed, but didn't say anything to him about it. It was getting late, so Izuku walked outside and got into the car. He felt the burning coal in his chest that always came with disappointment and embarrassment, but this time it was even more intense because this was supposed to be the time he proved himself to Aizawa. This was supposed to be the work study where he'd finally earn his teacher's trust back. He couldn't, though. He still needed to lock those powers away and not let them derail his focus anymore.

He was going to do it that night after dinner. He was going to completely lock away that power, because it wasn't helping, even if it wanted to. That was what Izuku promised himself as the group drove back to get some sleep for the night. He'd prove himself without that power, and he'd make that promise come true this time.

Author's Note: Hey. My upload schedule is going to shift from daily to weekly now that we're kinda catching up to the AO3 version of this fic. You should check that out if you want to see like 15 more chapters ahead of time, by the way. Anyway, see ya next week, where Izuku continues to try and prove himself to his mentors.