Spinner was braindead. So were Compress and Magne. Whatever the Children, whatever that woman Kisei — Izuku's … sister — had done to them with her Quirk had stripped them of all brain function, and they were effectively braindead. Just like the Nomu. They'd been taken to the doctor by the policemen that had stumbled out of the wreckage of the police station, but they didn't have the resources to care for victims of a Quirk nobody had ever seen before, so Aizawa had made a call and the comatose Vanguard had been taken to Central Hospital in Tokyo during the night. All Might, who had dragged Tsukauchi out of the station before it had come down, also made a call early in the morning to Recovery Girl asking her to meet the comatose villains in Tokyo to see if she could heal them. That had left the heroes present and the emergency services of Nagiso to do cleanup. Ten policemen had been present at the station when it and the buildings around it had been reduced to rubble, and seven of them had died. The chief of the Nagiso's police had narrowly survived, but one of the town's two doctors — who had a Quirk that suppressed pain by temporarily dulling sensory perception, effectively super-morphine — wasn't sure about his chances of ever working again, though.
The damage done to Aizawa's eyes by the flashbang that Chikara had thrown back in his face wasn't debilitating, but combined with his prior injury from all the way back at the USJ and the general dry-eye he got from his Quirk, it meant that he should be prepared to see a decrease in the amount of time he could keep his eyes open. Tsukauchi was fine, he only had a twisted ankle from tripping over himself trying to escape. All Might had received only bruises and light scrapes, and Gran Torino was so fast that he'd evaded injury entirely until he hadn't been able to dodge the slightest backhand from the child, Matabaki. Even then, since his body was built for high-speed impacts, he'd walked away with bruising and cuts, no major internal damage since it had seemed like Matabaki had simply been playing. Gran had made a joke about it, how Matabaki could've turned him into paste if he'd wanted to. That had made him laugh, which had aggravated his irritated lungs, which apparently was how Quirk exhaustion showed itself in him, but he insisted that other people needed healing more than himself.
Izuku had gotten the worst of the beatings that night, and even then, he'd gotten away relatively unscathed. He had walked away from that disastrous battle with a major concussion and a few torn muscles and hairline fractures along his arms, but that was it. The town's second doctor, the daughter of the first, had a Quirk that multiplied the target's speed of healing by five, and she'd used it on Izuku almost immediately, or so he'd been told. He'd passed out right after the adrenaline of the fight had been flushed out of his body by the shock of having failed so catastrophically. The only thing that remained after a few days was the bruising all over his torso and arms, and a few of the fractures in his arms. They would go after another week or so, or so she said, so he wasn't too worried about it. He still had a killer headache three days later, and it still hurt to move too quickly, but his recovery was going as smoothly as it could, all things considered. He had pushed himself slightly over the limit of his mastery of One for All, and for longer than ever before. Izuku was lucky to have walked away from that fight at all. He thought the Children would have easily killed him if not for the revelation that Kisei had had at the very end of their confrontation.
They were all siblings. Izuku and the Children were more or less the same, genetic reproductions of All for One created in search of more power. They called All for One their father, and they called him their brother. It was disturbing to say the least. He didn't want to be their sibling, but he was. By the loosest definition of the term, they were all brothers and sisters. Izuku processed that for a while in the aftermath of the battle. He had family out there, brothers and sisters that were set on hurting people with their Quirks. He'd been face to face with the only people in the world that were the same as himself, and they'd been on opposite sides. He wished he had been stronger so that he could've beaten Ikari. He seemed to be the only one that was really significantly stronger than Izuku. When he had been wrestling with Kisei, it hadn't seemed like her physical abilities were on par with Ikari's. As well, Matabaki's speed while under the effects of Erasure had been significantly lesser than it seemed his Quirk could make him. That told Izuku that they'd either been holding back, or that the Childrens' body modifications didn't grant them strength on par with a true Nomu. Izuku wouldn't have gone so far as to call them half-baked, but he definitely would've been able to beat Kisei if he hadn't started slowing down and running out of steam toward the end of the battle. It was only Ikari that was equal to about fifty percent of One for All, only the brute that could physically overpower Izuku. That might've been what the files were talking about when they named his Quirk Powerhouse.
If that was the case, then he had a good idea of what the other Childrens' Quirks did. Psychic Leech had been used to almost literally rip information out of the Vanguards' heads. Kisei had used it to try learning something from the Vanguards, someone's location, but they hadn't had the knowledge she'd been looking for. They had known that Izuku was the son of All for One, which was how she'd been able to inform the rest of their siblings of that development. Chikara's Telekinesis seemed to be what it sounded like, except not many telekinesis Quirks were powerful enough to stop a force anywhere close to twenty percent of One for All. It was a vastly stronger version of Yanagi's Poltergeist in that way. Katachi's Shape hadn't been used in the battle, but if she was some kind of changeling, that was a problem waiting to happen. It might've already happened. Matabaki's Blink was probably garden-variety super-speed, except far faster than Izuku had ever seen out of a single Quirk. The Ingenium line of heroes were famed for their speed, but they could still be tracked with the naked eye. It seemed that the faster-than-sight speed he had was due to the overlap of the Nomu-like body modifications overlapping with his Quirk, like with Ikari's strength. The two of them were only that fast and strong because of the combination of their Quirks and the unnatural physical attributes they had. Izuku had been able to manage Ikari while the brute had been under the effects of Erasure, so he thought he had a pretty good shot at dealing with the others that didn't have power and speed-type Quirks. Ikari and Matabaki were the real hazards on the battlefield.
Izuku wrote all of this down in his notebook. He needed the distraction. He wrote and wrote and wrote everything he knew about the Children. He needed to be sure that he had his facts right. Izuku wrote until his hand cramped and he was forced to stop. It was all he could do to distract himself from the burning mass in his chest, the fiery shame that consumed him whenever he had a moment to stop and think about how he'd failed to save Spinner, Magne and Compress. Sure, they were villains, and they'd attacked him and his friends back during the summer camp, but he'd meant what he said to Kisei. They were people, too. Izuku didn't want to be a hero who saved some people. He wanted to be a hero who saved everyone. It didn't matter who they were or what they'd done — Izuku would never have wanted them to die. He wanted to be better than the people Spinner had spoken about, the ones who had condemned him and hurt him just for the way he looked. He wanted to be the greatest hero, and the greatest hero didn't care about that. But Izuku hadn't been able to save them. That stung, even more so because of who it was that Izuku had failed to save.
In hindsight, Izuku could identify a lot of the thoughts and feelings Spinner had shared within himself. A lonely kid picked on and harassed because he was different? A young man who inherited the will to be greater? They were the same, though not in the way that he and the Children were the same. Izuku and Spinner had been the same in the ways that mattered, in the ways that shaped who a person was, rather than where a person came from. And he'd failed to save him. Izuku couldn't get it out of his head, the look on Spinner's face as he'd accepted his death in order to bring about the second coming of All for One. The burning passion in his voice as he'd preached about the flames of revolution, and how they could never be extinguished so long as someone is being stepped on by another. Unfortunately, he couldn't claim to think Spinner was wrong about that. What he'd been talking about was a very real thing, noted time and time again across history. As long as there were wars to wage, ideals to strive for, battles to fight, people would keep battling against the systems that oppressed them. It was human nature to be more than those before them, to build on the foundations laid by someone else. It was an unfortunate fact that some people used the freedom they were given by modern society and built upon the foundations of those wishing to tear everyone else's dreams down. Izuku couldn't understand that, but he could understand the desire that Spinner had to take what he could get and use it to push others toward their ideal lives. Spinner was selfless, in that way. He didn't do what he did for himself. He did it because he knew that, even if he failed, others would be there to carry on the spark no matter what.
It was early Sunday morning when Izuku decided that he needed to get away. He couldn't take the silent acceptance that they'd failed. Some fresh air and a different perspective were what he needed. In the middle of the night, he tiptoed out of his room and moved through the inn to go outside. He stopped when he passed the common room they'd used to plan, and saw that the files on the Children were still laid out on the coffee table. Izuku quietly stepped over to the table and looked down at the files. A burning feeling overcame Izuku, and he stared down at the files as if the pieces of paper were the Children themselves. He didn't hate them. He didn't hate anybody. Izuku feared them. They could come back and ambush him just like the first time and he'd be powerless to stop them. He didn't know what compelled him to act at that moment, but he took out his phone and silently took pictures of all the files. He didn't want to lose access to the information contained within when he went back home. What was he going to do with it? Izuku had no clue. He just wanted to keep it close.
He then went outside and used Float to jump up to the top of the inn's roof. He put no One for All behind it, nor did he jump very hard, not that he could have. Izuku landed and sat at the very top of the sloping roof, looking out at the mountains surrounding the town. He would see the street that he and the Children had ruined if he turned around but for that moment, Izuku was content to take in the view of the natural landscape. He watched the beautiful sight of the mountainside being slowly illuminated in pale yellow and orange by the slowly rising sun. Eventually, a burst of air rushed up from the ground and a figure was launched up onto the roof beside Izuku. It took a moment to realise that the person was Gran Torino, and he'd used his Quirk to leap up to the roof. He wasn't wearing his hero costume, but a civilian ensemble, so it was hard to recognise him. Gran Torino sat beside him, collapsing gently as one of his knees buckled without the cane he used to stand.
"You took quite the beating, newbie," Gran Torino said in his usual gruff way. Izuku nodded. "Sure can dish it out, though. It's a bizarre thing to see a kid that looks like you bust out Quirk after Quirk like that."
"That's what everyone says," Izuku mumbled.
"I bet," Gran Torino huffed. A moment passed, and Izuku couldn't even begin to guess where the elderly hero was going with this, but he seemed to just come right out and say it in the moment before he would've asked. "You can really talk to them, huh?"
"Yes," Izuku sighed. He should have thought that Gran Torino would have an interest in the vestiges. "In dreams, mostly, but strong feelings or things related to them can draw them out when I'm awake, too."
"I saw you flying around. Not like Toshinori does it. Real flying. Is she in there, too?" Gran asked.
"She is. Float has been invaluable to me. I saved one of my best friends with it," Izuku said.
"Can you …" Gran Torino seemed to think about how he wanted to say something. "Are you able to do that now? Draw her out?"
"I don't know. Do you want to … talk to her?" Izuku asked, putting it together as he spoke. "You won't be able to see or hear her, but she'll be able to see and hear you, and I can relay anything she wants to say."
Izuku called on Float and hovered a few centimetres off the roof. He closed his eyes and imagined Nana sitting there with them. Gran Torino was there, Nana's hero partner, so he pushed that thought to the front of his mind as he called on her spirit. Just like with Shinomori in his dorm room, mist began to swirl around Izuku and take shape in the air in front of him, hovering over the drop to the ground. This mist was pink, unlike the mint green that had formed Shinomori. It was akin to Smokescreen if it were a few shades lighter. When the pink mist formed Nana Shimura's appearance — powerful, kind, beautiful — she looked down at the two of them and smiled sadly.
"I didn't think I would see you again, Sorahiko," she said. Izuku repeated everything. Gran followed Izuku's line of sight and, even if he couldn't see her, looked up at his fallen friend. "It's good to see you're still in the field, protecting Toshinori."
"Someone needs to. He sure as hell won't do it himself," Gran said. He pushed out a laugh, but it wasn't even half-hearted. "You'll never believe what happened. You have a grandson, and he—"
"I'm already aware of the details of Tenko's life. It's … unfortunate that he was used the way he was, but I am glad that he was caught," Nana said. A terribly sad expression all but shone in the rising sun's light.
"Did we make a mistake? Sending Kotaro away was what allowed Tomura Shigaraki to eventually exist. Was that foolishness? Arrogance?" Gran Torino said.
"I believe so," Nana said. "At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. Sending him away was the only way I could ensure that my son was safe. He would get the chance to live apart from the tragedy that All for One would inevitably bring. I wanted him to be free of the weight of my career, my legacy, to never wonder if he was never going to see his mom again. In hindsight, making him know he was never going to see me again was the worst decision I ever made. If I had stayed by his side, I might have prevented hatred from taking root in him. If I'd had more to lose, would I have fought harder when the time came for me to die? I'll never know. I can only wonder, and I do."
"The choice we made had consequences, like any other. It's bad to get hung up on the way things could have been, but … I sometimes think about what would have happened if we had kept the boy," Gran said.
Izuku felt extremely out of place in this conversation, but he was also the only reason it could happen in the first place, so he kept quiet about it. It felt wrong for him to hear this, because they were talking about a very intimate, private thing, but it also wasn't anything Izuku didn't already kind of know about. There was something new that Izuku hadn't known previously, though, and it was how Gran Torino was speaking about Nana's son, Kotaro. Just then, he'd said we, like he'd had a say too, when Izuku's idea of what had happened had been that Nana had made the decision because her husband had died. Could it mean that … oh. That's how it was. Izuku felt even more like an intruder after that idea popped into his head. What force of the universe had made it so that he had to be present for Nana and Gran's first conversation in forty years?
"That's all I think about. What a life outside of the war between One for All and All for One would've been like. If heroes and villains had never sunk their teeth into my family. I think it would've been peaceful. I think I would've hated it," Nana said.
"I know you would've hated it," Gran Torino said, standing up. "I would have, too."
"It's done now. Tenko is behind bars, taking responsibility for the crimes he committed. All for One is in the deepest cell Tartarus has, rotting. One for All still lives on in Little Izuku. My unfinished business has been concluded. I suppose if I were a real ghost, I would pass on now, go to some other place and stop haunting the Quirk that was once mine. I'm not a real ghost, though. I'm just the core of what I was in life. Strength, love, kindness, determination. That's what I am now, and that's what I can offer to the world through you, Izuku. It's kind of romantic, right? Each person who holds our power can meet each other again in an afterlife of our own design, never growing old and never saying goodbye until there are no more people to save. I think so, at least," Nana said.
Izuku considered that for a moment. He didn't know if it was romantic, but it was definitely a nice thought. Nana smiled, and began to dissipate into nothingness as she faded away. Soon, Nana was gone again, and Gran sat there, looking up into the morning sky painted in orange and yellow and blue as the sun rose higher over the horizon. Izuku watched, too, and appreciated the sights and the moment with All Might's teacher. He had never really gotten to ask Gran Torino the things he'd really wanted to, like what All Might was like at Izuku's age or just how much stronger One for All had gotten since All Might had inherited it, which had been burning in his mind ever since he'd heard of a hero who had been around as long as he had. Those things didn't seem all that important when it was just the two of them alone after a long week of trying their best and not quite succeeding. He didn't truly care about the fanboy part of him that wanted to rattle off a million questions. Izuku was happy to just take in the sunrise and relax after trying so hard to prove himself and failing to do so. He was tired. He wanted to go home. Izuku wanted to see his friends.
And then there were Izuku's friends. A part of him, the same part that had been wishing the entire week that he could've brought them along, thought that if he'd just managed to talk Aizawa and All Might into letting his inner circle work with them, things would've gone exponentially better than they had. Katsuki had firepower to rival Izuku's. Sure, Izuku had outpaced him for now at twenty percent, but every time that happened and Izuku improved his mastery of One for All, Katsuki tended to simply grit his teeth and catch up. Ochako didn't have firepower so to say, but she did have a Quirk that lent her unmatched utility. She could have immobilised any of the Children with one touch. Tsu was incredible at filling in the gaps of everyone else's weaknesses, with their speed, grappling abilities and logical strategies, and was working on honing their new camouflage technique and their old, more or less useless paralysing saliva. They would have been valuable support. Hitoshi would have also been able to immobilise any of the Children with his Quirk, and might have even been able to avoid a fight in the first place. All of them working together would've been able to handle the Children just fine. Izuku couldn't have known that they would encounter such powerful villains, though, so he hadn't fought for them to join the mission. Besides, they all had their work studies to do, and unless all of their agencies also pitched in, Izuku doubted he would've been able to get them all excused from their workplaces.
He wondered how they were doing. Katsuki had ended up working for Best Jeanist again, Ochako had gone with Death Arms once more, Tsu was with Selkie for the second time, and Hitoshi was with Ms Joke, who he'd apparently met during the provisional licensing exam in September. Izuku was jealous about getting to meet the famous Ms Joke, but was glad that he'd missed what Hitoshi had described as major tension between Ms Joke and Aizawa of all people. His other classmates must be having a blast at their work studies, too. He wondered if they all got into even one fight that week, or if he was the odd one out in getting his butt kicked. He was among the strongest echelon of their class. Izuku was tempted to say he was the most powerful student in 1-A. He shouldn't lose like that. That was as unlikely as Sero trash talking All for One. He supposed stranger things had happened before. Stranger things were on their way, too, judging by Spinner's explanation of monsters. Izuku had a feeling that he wasn't talking about the Children back then. He was talking about other monsters, other villains. There were things lurking in the shadows of Japan. Izuku wanted to make it up to the ones who he had failed to save. He was going to shine a light on those shadows, no matter what. Their deaths wouldn't be in vain.
Shortly after that, Izuku and Gran Torino retreated from the roof of the inn and went back inside. It wasn't long after that that the others woke up and began preparing for the day. Izuku, All Might and Aizawa were going back to UA. Tskuauchi explained he and Gran Torino's next steps over tea.
"We're going to stay in town for a bit longer," he said. "There are still things to be done, like making sure the Children took the Nomu with them when they fled. We'll do another sweep of the countryside, and then head back to Tokyo. I have some contacts in Naruhata that could point us in the right direction of where the Children could be going next."
With that plan finalised, Izuku packed up his things. He put his hero costume, ripped and bloody and smashed to bits, back in its case and lugged it behind himself as he climbed back into All Might's old truck in his UA uniform. His scarf fluttered in the wind as he took another look at the town out the window as they drove out of town the same way they'd come in. Izuku was in the back seat this time, since All Might and Aizawa took the front seats, but he didn't complain. He could use the shred of privacy it gave him to simply sit with his thoughts. He watched the mountains roll by as they drove through the countryside, but that disappeared after a few hours as they entered suburbs, and then a city. Musutafu sprang up around them as they wound their way through big city traffic once again after a week of countryside and small town roads. The constant noise of people going about their day at the edges of his hearing was comforting after a week of dead silence at night. Izuku watched the tall buildings of UA and the hill they were built upon creep up over the horizon and come into view, and was relieved to finally be home when All Might pulled up to the front gates. Aizawa climbed out and entered the campus, but Izuku stayed seated as All Might met his eyes through the rearview mirror.
"You did well this week. Don't let yourself think otherwise. You've always been smart, but you're so strong now that I find myself struggling to find ways to help you. I know how you are, though, and I know you're beating yourself up about the Children. We'll find them, I promise. When we do, you'll be there, and you'll be just as amazing then as you are now," All Might said.
Izuku thanked All Might and got out of the car. He walked up to the gates and passed through, his shoulders relaxing the instant he stepped onto the school's grounds. He looked up to see Aizawa was still standing near the bend that turned toward the dorms, and Izuku walked up to silently ask him what he was hanging around for. When his tired, bloodshot eyes landed on Izuku with a critical sharpness to them, he figured it was time. He was about to get the verdict on whether or not Aizawa thought he'd actually proven himself trustworthy again after the summer camp. It had been just under six months since that disaster, but it felt like it had been no time at all. As well, it felt as though an entirely new disaster was unfolding before their very eyes as they were forced back to school and unable to deal with it. Izuku wondered if the way he'd acted had really been as helpful as he'd thought it had been. He waited for Aizawa to speak, not daring to interrupt and sour the man's mood any more than it clearly had been by the Children's surprise attack.
"I judged you this week based on two rubrics, given that I was playing two roles," Aizawa said. "First, I was still your homeroom teacher and your primary supervisor during that work study. That rubric judged the proficiency with which you used your Quirk and the other skills taught to you at this school. Using that rubric, you got a nine out of ten. You've brought your One for All up to the strength of a pro just by itself, and you've gotten exponentially better at using your other Quirks as well. I recall you mentioning that you want to improve your ability to multitask and combine Quirks for results you couldn't get from them separately right?"
"Yes, sir," Izuku said.
"Good. You should focus on that for your third term. The other rubric I judged you with comes from my role as your employer for the work study. That used things like your decision-making skills, your ability to follow orders, and your overall contribution to the mission in order to calculate your performance this past week. For that, I'd give you an eight out of ten. I was especially satisfied with your ability to control yourself with Spinner. I know you wanted to engage with him, do your power of friendship thing like you did with Shigaraki. You showed me that you're willing to put your own feelings aside and get a job done. That's important for a hero. You won't always get your way, but what matters is how you deal with that going forward, not the loss itself. Got it?" Aizawa continued.
"Understood, sir," Izuku said with a small smile.
Izuku walked off toward the dorms satisfied with the knowledge that he'd at least accomplished something during his work study. He may not have done what he'd wanted to do, which would have saved a lot of peoples' lives and would have prevented a major threat from making itself known. That was a bummer, and he still couldn't really get the look on Spinner's face as his brain had shut down out of his head. He didn't think he was going to forget that for a very long time, if ever. He wasn't sure he wanted to. Izuku felt a burning frustration in his gut every time he remembered it, an urge to act flooding every atom in his body, and it was the thing that allowed him to even think about the future. Izuku had inherited some of that fire from him in those last moments. Spinner may not ever recover from the comatose state that Kisei and his other siblings had subjected him to. Izuku would make sure that Spinner's call to action was at least answered by one person. Though how, he wasn't sure. He'd just have to figure it out in time.
It felt like a month had passed, but the mission and Izuku's work study had only lasted a week. Izuku remembered All Might's promise. He'd be there when they found the Children. No matter what happened, he'd find them. That was Izuku's promise.
End of Arc 14: Where It All Began
Author's Note: That concludes what would be the Endeavor Agency Arc in canon! As we get further into this fic, I find myself having to more or less invent more and more stuff, or repurpose canon things for other purposes more and more, and that's fun for me, but we're going to outrun the canon timeframe pretty soon and that's where the real fun will begin. See ya next time, where the third term of Izuku's first year at UA begins, and the final arc of the First Year saga commences. As of tomorrow's chapter, we'll also be switching from daily uploads to weekly, as per my regular schedule, as we're coming up on the end and I have less of a stockpile of chapters than I did when we started this mad sprint toward this point. Thanks for reading!