"You did very well," Obi-Wan said as they entered back into the hero agency. Aoyama and Rex were off doing another run, Rex not taking Aoyama's yawning well. Had the boy merely admitted he was tired then Rex would have let him sleep but Aoyama had gotten a bit to… flippant… about how he was ready for more and that had annoyed Rex to no end, causing them to go on another morning run. Izuku knew that Rex was bone tired too and was punishing himself but he was determined to get Aoyama to stop being 'a fancy little fake' and actually show the world who he was.
Izuku wanted to feel bad for his classmate. He knew that there was something else going on with him. Something he was hiding from everyone. He was playing up too much his 'lalala' persona and he had seen winks and glimpses of the real Aoyama. One that actually did want to be a hero and wasn't just in it to look pretty. But he also knew that wanting to be a hero was one thing… it was another to be a hero. Especially when no one trusted you.
'And no hero is going to trust Aoyama to have their back, the way he is acting,' Izuku thought. 'I don't know why he's acting the way he is… but if he truly wants to be an effective hero he needs to figure something out soon.'
Tenya and Anakin had gone to park the car and then look over Tenya's engines; he had spent the entire night racing people up and down the tunnel to get them to safety and Anakin wanted to see what the stress of constantly using his quirk had done to him.
"Thank you," Izuku said with a soft yawn. He had napped a bit in the car ride… well, to be truthful he had completely conked out the moment he'd gotten his seat belt on and only awoken when Obi Wan had given him a shake. He could use more sleep but the time he had gained had been enough to allow him to at least be able to function. "So, are we going to meditate now?"
"I think you need sleep more than anything… as do I." Obi Wan made no attempt to hide his own yawn. "And then, once you are rested, you can set to work."
"Set… to work?" Izuku asked, confused.
Obi Wan smiled and knocked his knuckles against the shoulder guard that Izuku was wearing, causing the boy's eyes to widen as he realized what the man was getting at.
"My armor…" he whispered, looking down at the white plate. While it was smudged in spots it wasn't too dirty but he knew that didn't actually matter. He had been in battle. Yes, he hadn't needed to fire his weapon but he had still stood watch over the civvies and made sure they were protected. That was enough to remove the mark of 'Shiny' from him.
He had earned the right to paint his armor. To customize it. To make it HIS.
Suddenly the last thing he wanted to do was sleep. His mind buzzed with ideas both old and new about what he could do with the armor. What add-ons would allow him to be a more affective hero. Colors and patterns. What to keep and what to replace.
Obi Wan placed a hand on his shoulder and chuckled slightly. "You can work on all that when you get some sleep."
"I… yes, yes of course." He nodded his head rapidly and hurried towards the room he was sharing with Aoyama and Tenya, his mind buzzing with thoughts.
And yet… he still was out the moment his head hit the pillow.
~MC~MC~MC~
"Everyone should be talking about me and my Nomu!" Tomura ranted as he marched up and down along the bar, scratching at his chin. "I attacked a city and they needed to bring in every hero they could! Those fucking NPCs had their bases utterly crushed! Destroyed! All the XP should be raining down upon me and all the potential companions be lining up at my door asking me to let them join my party! I sent out my best weapons, with all the legendary perks!
"The heroes… they were scrambling about like Noobs, unable to decide what mission to start first! Trying to figure out where they should go, what boss they should be taking out first, not realizing that I was tucked away driving the entire thing without having to get my hands dirty. Just placing all my forces and watching as they marched over the battlefield! They should be calling for my head even as they wring their hands and wonder how they could be so low in terms of levels when compared to me.
"But you know what all the dialogue options are giving me?"
He whipped around and Kurogiri tossed him one of the chipped mugs that he simply had no way of salvaging. At once Tomura turned it to dust and let it fall to the floor at his feet.
"FUCKING STAIN!" the youth roared.
Kurogiri didn't bother to glance at the TV, which thankfully had been mounted near the ceiling and thus survived Tomura's rampage. Had it not there was little doubt in the man's mind that his young charge would have turned it to dust in an instant. That tended to be his reaction when there was bad news. It was why they didn't have couriers anymore.
"That tongue fetish bastard stole all the XP and left me with the shit Pipe Weapon loot that only goes for a few fucking bottlecaps!"
"Bottle… caps?" Kurogiri couldn't help but ask. He knew he shouldn't as usually most of the video game references Tomura made went right over his head, but sometimes he found himself so befuddled he couldn't help but ask what the young master was getting at.
"Fallout," Tomura stated. "The world ends and no one uses money, they use bottle caps, and everyone is killing each other and god I wish I lived there because I would hunt down Stain and watch as his tongue slowly crumbled into bits!" Kurogiri threw him another mug and Tomura reduced it to dust; that made the bartender sigh, knowing he'd have to get the vacuum AGAIN. Frankly if it wasn't one of those canister types they would have been forced to leave the bar and be homeless because the young master would have had them going through so many vacuum bags… "Fucking Metal Gear looking bitch swooped in and took all my glory!"
"Perhaps the Hero Commission is trying to hide their worries about you?"
"They aren't talking about anything," Tomura complained in frustration. "This is all just gossip."
On the TV the commercial for some new moisturizer (and frankly Kurogiri wondered if he shouldn't try purchasing some and make yet another attempt to get the Young Master to try to do SOMETHING about his dry flaky skin) ended and it returned to the tabloid news program they had been watching. It was as trashy as one could get, with a vapid young woman that only had her job because her quirk allowed her to swell her breasts to different cup sizes as she got excited and thus, throughout the program, her boobs would increase and decrease in size, giving the perverts the vain hope that they might pop out. They never did, of course, and Kurogiri was very sure that the woman, who spoke in a breathy tone while wearing the most vapid of smiles, was FAR more intelligent than anyone gave her credit for.
Tomura didn't watch for the titillation, however. No… he was interesting in what she had to share because Yumi (and only 'Yumi', as she would say with a giggle at the start of each program) was one of the few people in all of Japan that regularly would share all the juicy dirt on heroes. While there were plenty who would share gossip… Kurogiri could name five different newspapers who within the last week had done articles about some scandal and the whispers about who was dating who or was caught doing this or that were common… Yumi seemed to be the only one who went the next step and shared what the Commission didn't want out. The Master's own sources said that the Commission only tolerated her because it would be too much of a scandal to kill her… at the moment.
But Yumi broke the truly disgraceful and embarrassing hero stories. Like how Rolling Writer, who claimed to be one of the most tolerant heroes in Scotland, had been caught going on a bigoted tirade concerning the Wild Pussycat Dolls for daring to have a Trans Member; when she'd tried to defend herself she'd accidently revealed that she was good friends with a known villain, Arseface. Or how Henry Wickerson, hero agent in America who helped set up a dozen hero teams and been given hundreds of awards for his great work, had been sexually assaulting dozens of young heroines for years and threatening to destroy their careers if they didn't accept his offers for their silence. And the scandal of the French heroine Joan Dearc, who claimed to be the most pious and saintly of all heroes, being found in bed with known vigilante the Scissoring Seismologist? Well, the jokes had written themselves and for a brief time no one had been focused on Yumi or her breasts.
Today though Tomura had turned on the show, hoping to hear about the chaos he had caused in Hosu, only to be greeted with the gossip about Endeavor. Grainy footage of him fighting a figure many were claiming was Stain. The arrival of the Sir Steel well after the battle and him calling for medical aid. The report from an unnamed nurse who claimed that Endeavor had lost the use of his legs.
Yumi was running with it… and from the way Tomura had begun muttering as he looked through his phone it had been clear that the other news sources were slowly following her lead.
"It makes no fucking sense!" the Young Master roared in frustration. "What do I have to do to get these idiots to fucking notice me! I attack All Might and all people talk about is his Echo Fighter Daughter Star Might! I attack Hosu and everyone only cares about Stain! I could go and shoot the Prime Minister in the dick and then teabag his corpse and everyone would probably focus on what shoes he was wearing!" He shook his head in frustration, his nails desperately digging into his flesh; if Kurogiri hadn't personally seen to it that his nails had been trimmed (Tomura had never been around nail clippers, worried that he might hurt his fingers and forcing the warp gate villain to drug him so he might handle such care in the young master's sleep) then he would have been bleeding heavily from the way he was scratching. "I need to talk to Sensei."
That was the last thing that Kurogiri wanted to happen. It wouldn't end well for any of them. The Master had been VERY clear that he didn't want to be disturbed, as he needed to deal with matters that didn't concern any of them. Tomura wouldn't take his silence well and would do all he could in order to reach him… and that would lead to pain. He just knew it.
"Perhaps you might look elsewhere for inspiration?" he suggested.
"What do you mean?" Tomura asked dangerously, glancing at him from the corner of his eye.
"The Master isn't the most… modern… of thinkers, after all. You two have disagreed on courses of action, haven't you?" Tomura slowly nodded at that. "I am not well versed in video games either. Why not, then, seek out those that are, if that is how you are viewing such things?"
"What… you want me to jump into a multiple player and ask them how I should destroy the hero society?"
"You are far more cunning than that, young master," Kurogiri said, trying to placate him. "Why not ask them how one could get attention from those that don't notice you?"
Tomura slowly considered that. "Yeah… yeah that might work. They are all more in-tune with society as well… and hey, maybe one of them lets something slip and I find out that they are prime to become party members." He quickly added, though, "Not my Player two… Tano is gonna be my two."
"Young Master, she is a hero student-"
"You saw her… there is a darkness there, Kurogiri. She sees that people like that Bakugo kid are what the heroes want. Violent monsters who hide behind their rules. All she needs is a bit of a push and she'll see things my way. Hmmm…" He rubbed his chin. "I should ask them…"
As he went up to his room Kurogiri wondered what it meant to get what you wanted… and feel like you had lost.
~MC~MC~MC~
"…I thought you told him," Frostburn hissed, glancing at his partner.
"I did!" Sunbite complained.
"Really?" the former villain said coolly (well at least more coolly than was normal for him), waving at where Todoroki was sitting with the kids. "Does that look like a normal reaction?"
Todoroki was on a bench with the young children at the camp, looking with his own dry confusion (it was there, you just had to know what to look for) as a little girl with bandages wrapped around half her face was tugging a white tube sock over his left hand. Once it was in place she began to push the toe of the sock in between his thumb and fingers, forming a 'mouth'.
"Now, is it a boy or a girl?"
"…it's a sock," Todoroki stated.
He was supposed to be helping the kids make their sock puppets but when they'd found out he'd never made a sock puppet himself they had all decided he had to make one too, which was how the hero in training found himself sitting next to the little girl as she bossed him about. It was actually rather sweet… and sad… how confused he was by the entire thing. He was completely patient with the children, never once telling them that he was 'above' such things. And the way he spoke to them… it was what they needed. No coddling. Just straight facts.
The girl, Kiko, giggle. "Yes, but a girl sock or a boy sock?"
"I… suppose a boy sock?" he said with a shrug.
"Okay, so we can give him regular googly eyes," she said as she grabbed the plastic white and black eyes and some glue. "What about hair?" she asked as she applied the glue.
Todoroki frowned as he looked at the different balls of yarn that had been laid out for the kids to pick. He quickly dismissed the red and white ones, the heroes could tell that, instead stopping on a shade of rather noticeable green. "One of the students in my class has that exact shade of green hair."
"What's his name?" Bumo, the boy with his left eye scarred over, asked with a grin.
"Midoriya."
"Then this is Lil Midoriya!" Kiko declared.
"What exactly did you tell him?" Frostburn demanded as the kids began to work with Todoroki to figure out just how to get the hair for 'Lil Midoriya' just right.
Sunbite held out his hands desperately. "What I told you! I went up to him and told him that there had been an incident in Hosu and his father was injured. I offered to take him to the hospital myself-" And Frostburn knew that it would have to be Sunbite as even with his now reformed status he would never be welcome to the Hero Commission's private hospital unless it was as a cadaver and even then they might still want to just perform his autopsy in the parking lot, "-and told him we were here for him. He just… said okay and went to play with the kids."
"You made clear how serious this is?" Frostburn pressed.
"No smiles, very grim. I know how not to be a smiling loon."
"Hmmm." Frostburn rubbed his chin. "The internship?"
"You think he's worried about that?"
"Might have been told that it would look bad if he left the internship early. Just told that and not anything else."
Sunbite frowned at that. "You really think UA would do something like that?" He himself had gone to a smaller hero school and the only interaction he'd had with UA was The Crushing at the Hero License Exam… namely teaming up with some UA First Years to startle and surprise the rest of his class. Hadn't won him friends BUT he had been the only one to get his hero license that year.
That made Frostburn scoff. "They have Eraserhead working there. That man prefers to sleep most days rather than teach."
"…isn't he your second cousin?"
"Third and I stand by my statement," Frostburn commented before shaking his head. "Alright, alright, you did everything you could. Sorry."
"Awwwww," Sunbite said with a grin. "You almost sounded like you meant that!"
The ice hero rolled his eyes and moved out onto the patio where the kids were doing Arts and Crafts. "Todoroki, a minute?" The young man nodded and walked over to him, holding himself very serious and dignified. "So, Sunbite told you about your father?"
"He did."
"Alright so… I want you to know that while it is important to stick with your internship there are allowances made. No one looks down on students if there are family issues that force them to leave."
"Very well."
Frostburn mentally groaned; the kid was so hard to read at times. It was like trying to talk to a wall. They had offered the second day to allow him to do some training rather than watch a movie with the kids and Todoroki had merely stated, "If I must." Which Frostburn had read as him… not wanting to train? It was hard to tell. But the fact that he had gone and sat next to the kids on the couch and while being a bit stiff had allowed them to cuddle up to him had spoken of him actually not wanting to train.
"And… I'm not sure if Sunbite explained things to you fully," he said.
"He did," Todoroki repeated.
"Well, I-" He paused. "Can you… lower the puppet?" He gestured at the sock puppet Todoroki was still holding up.
"Kiko said it would be rude to do so, since this is his birthday. She also requested cake though I am not sure why. The practical's of him blowing out the candles…"
Frostburn shut his eyes for a moment before nodding. "Right." He took a breath, deciding to just… ignore 'Lil Modoriya'. "So you understand that… your father is injured. Very injured."
"I understand that he is paralyzed from the waist down," Todoroki informed him. Frostburn raise an eyebrow at that, which for him was a dramatic gasp, and Todoroki pulled out his phone. "I received an email from the Hero Commission President. She said the information was confidential and not to be shared but considering several of my classmates have already reached out to me because they have heard some variation of the news I believe that it is safe to inform you of this. If it was not please inform me."
Frostburn stared at the e-mail blankly. He had known that Endeavor was injured and in the care of the Hero Commission but he had assumed it was a rupture organ or the like. Something that could be taken care of rather quickly.
But… paralyzed?
"Do you need a moment?" Todoroki asked, tilting his head in consideration. It was something he hadn't done often and Frostburn and Sunbite had reasoned the boy had seen others do it and was copying them, learning how to make the gesture his own. More disturbing was that he made the sock puppet tilt its head. "I can retrieve Sunbite-"
"Kid," Frostburn said, holding up his hand. "Kid. Your father is paralyzed from the waist down."
"That is correct."
"You… you understand what this means, right? He might never be a hero again."
"I am hopeful."
It took Frostburn FAR too long to realize just what Todoroki was 'hopeful' for.
"He may not have given me this burn," Todoroki stated, gesturing at the scar on his face, "but he is the reason it is there. And if he remained a hero he could have gone on to burn other children. Scar them. Kill them." He never raised his voice or got emotional. He just talked with utter calmness and that was the most frightening thing. Even holding up a sock puppet he was deadly serious. "I am becoming a hero so I might make the world a safer place. Today… the world is a safer place with my father confined to a bed for the rest of his life."
He stared at Frostburn for a long moment.
"The children want to show me how to play freeze tag. They assured me it doesn't use quirks so I am interested."
And with that he turned and walked away.
"…fuck," Frostburn whispered.
"I…" Sunbite said, making his presence known, "I… heard that."
"Yeah you did," Frostburn said, unable to even find it in himself to be angry that his partner had listened in.
"…what do we do now?"
"Same thing we'd do for any abused child," Frostburn murmured. "Help."
~MC~MC~MC~
All For One sat in his chair, the many machines designed to help him live quietly beeping and chirping around him. The Doctor had offered to make them as silent as possible but he'd refused, wanting to make sure he knew if even one began to act up. He knew that at this point he didn't actually need the machines… he could survive without them. Better yet he could fight without them. But… right now he didn't know how well that survival would be. And he certainly could tell that his body wouldn't win most fights.
That was the thing that no one truly understood: his quirk was all about altering his body and as such he had learned how to identify everything going on with said body. And when one was as injured as he was, left sightless and barely able to even twitch a finger without feeling agonizing pain… they learn how their body works. Every inch of his body he understood. He could see in his mind just how long his toenails were. Knew of the rough patch on his ankle where a sock had rubbed the wrong way but he had stubbornly refused to call the robotic attendant to adjust it. How many hairs were on his chest. The taste buds that were growing after he'd scrapped the old ones with his tooth. All of this he felt and he knew. And understood.
He knew what his body could do. And he knew that at the moment if he were to try and fight someone in the Top 30 of Heroes he would lose. He would be flailing about wildly in the dark, thanks to his lack of sight. And his body wasn't as strong as he desired it to be. There were a few quirks he was looking into in hopes of fixing that but for now he needed the machines.
They didn't annoy him… no, not at all. In their own way they were a symphony and he was the sole audience. Every chirp. Every beep. Every trill. They were just different instruments for him to listen to, playing a song of warning.
"Don't forget how you ended up like this" they played.
"You were arrogant and rash and it cost you"
"This is the cost of not thinking out your plan"
Others would have been bitter. But All For One was beyond such emotions. He was the Demon Lord and demons didn't rage. They considered the information and built upon it. And that was what All For One was doing at that moment. He was plotting his next moves, how he would rise up in the world and reclaim the throne that belonged to him.
'The problem,' he thought, 'is that too many new pieces have been added to the performance.'
Life was music, he had found. Everyone was trying to play their own music and it was up to the powerful conductor to be able to bring out the best in their orchestra so that no others could be heard. That they would be drowned out until those woodwinds and brass and percussion and strings joined in playing his music rather than anyone else's. Young Tomura believed that he wanted to spread chaos… create a world of no laws and no order. That wasn't the case at all. It was the folly of the boy's youth. What All For One wanted was HIS laws. His order. After all, what kind of performance could one have if all they did was blast different notes that were played out of tune?
But now he found that things weren't going as he had hoped. New instruments had joined the song and they were playing their own tunes. Worse… they were playing them loud enough to distract his own orchestra.
'Stain,' he thought to himself. 'Young Tomura raves and rants about him… and he is right. The man is pulling away those that would be perfect pieces in my grand plans and turning them to his side. It is useless to try and bring him into the fold for he believes in the hero system. His slavish devotion to All Might, seeing him as the pinnacle of society… he would know of me and would attempt to kill me the first chance he got.' It was, honestly, only because All For One was staying in the shadows that he hadn't had Stain confront him more directly. But that didn't mean that the deranged Hero Killer wasn't a threat; already several of the lesser villains he had brought into his ranks had died to Stain when they got in the man's way. He just didn't advertise it which was why Stain was seen only as 'Hero Killer'.
And then there were the whispers of some sort of Meta Liberation Army. A group of powerful people, not just in terms of quirks but wealth and status, aligned together to guide society as THEY saw fit. All For One wasn't surprised by their existence; indeed, ever since man had begun gathering together in tribes there were those that sought to use their power to command. Not as a leader but in other roles. The advisor to the king, for example. Or the rich merchant that was a Lord in all but name. The same was true of Modern Day Japan and All For One had known that he would eventually have to deal with them. After all, governments falling wouldn't be tolerated if it hurt their piggy banks.
'I should have had more time,' he thought to himself, shifting in his chair as he felt an inch on his scalp. 'They shouldn't have realized the danger I posed until I revealed myself to the world. And yet here they are… nipping at the edges of my empire.'
It was an annoyance he didn't need. Suddenly groups that he had been courting went silent. Moles and spies found their information drying up. People weren't seeking him out for alliances and instead were willing to try and give it a go on their own.
Someone was altering the game, making power moves.
And All For One didn't like it.
'Then there is the matter of the meddlesome Kenobi,' he thought darkly, thinking of the new Heroics Teacher at UA.
One might have been startled to realize that All For One had been playing a large part in how Hero Society was built but one didn't make a grand symphony and ignore a section of instruments. The heroes were no different than the businesses or the public or the villains. They were just another piece for him to manipulate and control. To subtly push in the directions he needed them to go, never realizing that they were being corrupted from the inside, the rot beginning not in some wound but from the very core and working its way outward.
'I invested in the media groups that built them up into celebrities. The endorsement deals, the sponsorships, the photo shoots. All created to slowly raise up more and more of the vain and crooked so that they were the ones in power. Driving the wedges into the Hero Community so that mistrust between Daylight, Underground, and Rescue Heroes make it difficult for them to work together and near impossible for them to respect. All so that when I removed the three cornerstones everything would come crashing down.'
It a beautiful plan. All Might, Endeavor, and Hawks were the three most highly ranked heroes in Japan and well known throughout the world as well. But All Might was injured… and All For One had always planned to finish their fight from four years ago. Lifting up his broken body before tossing it to a devastated public. Then he would reveal the dark secrets of Endeavor and Hawks. The abuse and violence for one, the stolen childhood for the other. The world of Heroes and the Japanese Government reduced to rumble and he as the only one to remain.
But then… Kenobi.
The Negotiator had begun working with Nedzu. All For One had been rather pleased when the 'World's Smartest Being' had been made principal of UA as he knew most of Japan would never trust him. Not just because people hated those that were better than them but because he was different. It would ensure that the Hero Students didn't respect him like they would have a proper principal and the public would be quick to turn on him. The teachers too would fear and loathe him for his games, as Nedzu hated humans and only allowed himself to be around them so that he could enjoy their suffering as he conducted his experiments.
'But Kenobi has become friendly with him… and they are changing everything,' All For One thought. 'The Entrance Exam adding the 4th Test, to see how they handle helping those that would be seen as villains. His work to make them stand on their own and not blindly follow the directives of the companies and the sponsors. The Internships… whatever else will that meddlesome man do to fix what I created?!'
He hated Kenobi. He hated him because he was competent. He was good at his job. And that was something All For One hadn't planned for.
'That man… he has begun pulling on the strings of all I have set up and begun unweaving the symphony'
He was so mad that he was mixing his metaphors!
'It was supposed to be All Might,' he thought bitterly. 'That grinning buffon was supposed to go to UA in order to find his successor and prepare them to replace him.' All For One had quietly reached out to those that were on the edges of All Might's orbit and whispered in their ears through his spies and contacts the idea of All Might teaching. Just a small thing. Something to put it in his head. Same with Nedzu as well. He had even manipulated Sir Nighteye into using his quirk to see the future and then go about trying to order All Might on what to do. He hadn't been able to reach David Shield but he knew that the man was another possibility… he had gathered some lovely quirks for his daughter and would have offered them as payment for him to say what he wanted…
But All Might hadn't gone to UA.
There had been no need.
He HAD his successor.
'How did he have a child!?' All For One fumed. 'How did that big oaf produce an heir? He feared such connections after what happened to his precious mentor… he was supposed to be terrified of producing a child or having a wife. And yet now there is this Star Might.'
He didn't doubt for a moment that Star Might was All Might's child. All Might was unable to lie… he was too noble for it. But he could conceal the truth. He could have a daughter and just… not mention her. Everyone asked if there was a 'special someone' in his life (and All For One had nearly gagged every time the reporters asked that, saying the words in such a cutesy way that was utterly disgusting) and he would make a comment about all his fans or justice… but never answer the question. No… Star Might was his child and he had given her One For All… and that was a problem.
'Especially because she is proving to be better than her father,' he thought darkly. 'Her outreach programs, her focus on charity work… she is using All Might's empire to its full potential. She isn't merely his successor she is a hero already fully grown…'
And Tomura wasn't ready.
That was what was angering All For One most of all.
His successor wasn't ready.
All For One… wasn't ready.