As Izuku had rightfully believed, his mother refused to accept that her son was nothing more than a villain. The next few weeks were a blur. She was separated from Izuku for her safety, and at U.A., she hated all the apologetic looks she got, as if they were saying;
'We're sorry that Izuku did that. You deserved better.'
She hated that look. But even more than that, she was festering a deep dislike for all of Izuku's friends.
She never got the chance to tease him and that Uraraka girl. Looking back, she's glad she didn't. She wasn't a good enough friend to her boy. Did he not have any close friends? That something like this was allowed to happen? U.A was supposed to be a fresh start, an end to him being mistreated by teachers and fellow students. It seemed that that was just a pipe dream.
The only one that didn't look at her like that was Eri, who Izuku had said in messages called him 'Papa.'
A little girl with a broken heart. Eri took the loss of her surrogate father pretty hard. She opened up to the green haired woman quickly, which Inko soon realized was because she reminded Eri of Izuku.
A few months later, when the whole hullabaloo surrounding Izuku had died down, Inko and Eri moved out of U.A. Inko thought that was for the best. Not only did being constantly around the people that betrayed her father not help Eri, if Inko stayed any longer, she would've hurt somebody. She didn't show it, but the looks of pity, and the ever-present badmouthing of her only child was getting to her, and driving her crazy.
They lived at Izuku's childhood home, and they started to settle into a comfortable routine. No-one bothered or worse, harassed her about Izuku, like she had expected, and she was happy that she didn't have to move.
It'd been about a year since Izuku was declared a villain, and Eri and Inko still missed the scruffy-haired, bright-eyed Izuku Midoriya. It was getting difficult to assure Eri that her Papa would come back, as Inko was also finding it hard to believe, bur she still held on tightly to any sliver of hope.
In an effort to cheer Eri (and herself) up, Inko took the little girl to the place Izuku had done most of his training, Dagobah beach. The kid had single handedly turned it from Musutafu's worst dumping grounds back into an attraction. She thought of it whenever the thought of Izuku being a villain invaded her mind. What villain would do that?
They went to the beach in the middle of the weekend, during the day, when most people were at school or at work, so they could have the beach to themselves. Eri had been through the wringer in her short life. She could miss a day.
***
The two walked down the steps into the sands and as Inko looked out over the beach, for a spot to relax in, she spotted someone. A man, wearing a hood, a white undershirt with a blue tunic over it, trousers and heavy-looking boots, sat on the sand, and he was just gazing out at the open sea.
''He's just sitting there? I guess the ocean is nice... But he isn't even dressed for the beach,' Inko thought, looking at the man.
She looking over to the child in her care. Eri wasn't terrified like she'd expected, but she was clearly a little uncomfortable at the chance of interacting with a complete stranger.
"Should we leave, Eri?" she asked, making sure to keep her voice soothing.
"N-No, Papa would want me to be brave," she said, looking back up at Inko, with shaky yet determined eyes. The older woman smiled, proud of the progress the girl had made. She spread out a mat on the golden sands and sat down, and she watched Eri as she began to play in the sand.
"Hey, Eri?" she said, "You've been so brave, and I'm going to get you some shaved ice as a reward."
"But..."
"I know. I'm right there." Inko pointed to where the snack stand was set up. A small shed, and a few benches, and there was a woman there already.
"Just be brave for me a little longer, okay?"
"Okay..."
Inko smiled and got up. Walking over to the stands, she placed her order of a cup of shaved ice with chocolate for Eri, and a cup of chamomile tea for herself. The vendor got to preparing her order, and Inko took a seat while waiting. She must've been fidgeting, because the other patron, a young blonde woman, spoke up.
"You seem a tad restless, miss. Is there something wrong?" she asked. "Anything I can help with?"
"No, but thanks for asking..." she smiled.
"Oh." The young blonde had noticed her furtive glances at the bathroom stalls. "You have to..." she said, trailing off.
"Yes," Inko sheepishly admitted, her face heating up in slight embarrassment. "But..."
"I can watch her," she offered. "Or I could ask my husband to. That's him over there," she said, pointing to the man watching the waves.
"Oh, that's your husband?"
"Yes, we got married about a few months ago," she smiled, eagerly raising her hand to show off her wedding band.
"It's beautiful," Inko said, admiring it. It's design was simple, yet elegant, with a miniscule emerald embedded in it. "Congratulations!"
"Thank you." The young woman retracted her hand, and looked back to her husband, who was still sitting on the shore, staring out at the horizon. She sighed.
"He's not usually not this broody, it's just that this place means a lot to him," she explained. "We just got back from a long trip, and we haven't even been home yet. This was the first place we came."
"That's nice, this place must be really important to him, huh?"
"It is," she confirmed, nodding. "This was where he took the first steps to becoming the man he is today."
"He sounds great, and I hope he loves you as much as you love him."
"He does. Hylia, he does. Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve him," she said dreamily, before snapping back to reality. "Oh, listen to me ramble on and on, I'm sorry. Go on, I'll hold on to the treats, and I'll keep an eye on her from here."
"Thank you," Inko said, getting up and hurriedly making her way towards the stalls.
***
"That's a really good sandcastle."
Eri's eyes shot up. The stranger who was staring out at the ocean and the sun earlier, was now much closer.
"T-Thank y..." she started, but was stunned into silence when the stranger took his hood down, revealing a messy bush of green hair. He turned to the little girl, who began to tremble when she saw his freckles and his shiny emerald eyes. He gave the girl a soft smile. The same smile that he used to give her, when she had nightmares of Yakuza. The same smile that he gave her as he reassured her that she was a blessing, not a curse.
"Papa... Is-Is it really you?" she asked, her eyes beginning to water.
"Hey, Snowflake," he said with a small wave, his voice just as warm and soft as she remembered.
Not even Inko called her that.
"Papa..." she said shakily, her eyes beginning to water. Izuku smiled softly and opened his arms. The small girl took the invitation, running through the sandcastle she'd built, scattering the moist sand into chunks, but that didn't matter to her.
Her Papa was back.
She slammed into Izuku's chest, nearly knocking the tired boy over.
"Dear Hylia, it's been too long." he muttered, wrapping his arms around her and pulling Eri deeper into an embrace, as happy tears fell from his and Eri's eyes. At that point, Inko returned with the cold snack and her cup of tea, and she started to panic when she Eri in the arms of the stranger.
"Eri! What are you..." Inko froze when she saw the green hair.
"Mom..." the boy whispered, staring at her.
"IZUKU!" she screamed, before dropping the food to the ground and shooting towards him like a bullet from Snipe's gun. Izuku blinked in surprise as he watched the older woman flying at him at the speed of sound.
'Uh oh.'
Izuku hastily peeled Eri off of him, and a split-second later, his mother came crashing into him, her arms wrapping around him and squeezing tightly.
Too tightly.
"Mom.... can't ... breathe..." the poor boy croaked, as his mother condensed all the affection she couldn't give before into a vice-grip of a hug.
She didn't let go.
"Papa is changing color..." Eri observed innocently, watching as Izuku was starting to suffocate. Inko heard this and opened her eyes. He was indeed changing color. She gasped and hurriedly unclasped her arms from around her neck, feeling a little guilty.
"Air..." he breathed. As Izuku was greedily slurping in oxygen, his mother and daughter took a closer look at him. He looked... rugged. His hair was somehow wilder than they remembered, and he was even growing rough facial hair. Rather handsome, compared to his old cutesy appearance. He had a hesitant expression on his face, before he opened his mouth to speak.
"I didn't do any of the things tha-" he started, interrupted when Inko smacked him over the head.
"We know that," she said, crossing her arms. "My son doesn't have a villainous bone in his body."
"That means a lot to me." Izuku chuckled, rubbing his head where his mother had smacked him. "I never got to see you and Eri... I was scared that they'd tell you that I was... that I.. and you would believe them and start h-hating-"
"Never. You never have to worry about that. Even if the impossible happened and you became a villain, I would never stop loving you. Never."
Wait. Hold on. Her new friend had called Izuku her husband earlier. Her gaze moved over to Izuku's hands.
A ring was on his finger, and a beautiful one at that, similar to the one Zelda had eagerly showed off, but a blue sapphire instead of a green emerald. That meant...
Izuku caught Inko staring at his hand. He looked back up and saw the look on her face. He sighed, accepting his fate. He shut his eyes as he was overcome by a torrent of tears.
***
"Papa, there's hair on your face," Eri said curiously, while watching Izuku attempting to wring his mother's tears out his clothes.
"Yup. Cool, isn't it?" he said, taking off the hood to squeeze water out of it.
"When are you going to shave?" a voice asked. The family turned towards the source, the blonde woman who was looking at Izuku with her arms crossed.
"You want me to shave?" Izuku asked, an eyebrow raised.
"This is not the first time it's come up."
"Wha- Anytime I try to shave, you stop me!" he exclaimed, exasperation sneaking into his voice.
"You cannot trim your hair with the sword that seals the darkness!" she snapped.
"Well, excuuuse me, Princess." Izuku rolled his eyes, before his eyes met her cold gaze.
"I-I'll shave tomorrow evening." he muttered. Her glare didn't let up.
"T-Tomorrow morning?" he said hopefully. No dice.
"Tonight." he conceded with a groan, and warmth returned to the woman's face.
"Good." she said. "Why are you soaked? Did you go swimming without changing again?"
"Nah, my mom found out we were married." "Mom, Eri, this is Zelda. My wife."
"We've met," Inko said, getting to her feet. She then proceeded to measure Zelda up and down. Then she looked into the blonde's eyes, staring fiercely, intimidating Zelda. Inko then opened her mouth to speak, and Zelda prepared for the worst.
"Thank you," Inko said, as sincerely as possible.
Zelda blinked.
"F-For what?" she stuttered, surprised.
"For standing by my son's side when I c-couldn't."
"No, Mrs. Midoriya, don't cry, please."
"Call me Inko, dear. And please, I know you two love each other. You two already argue like an old married couple."
"O-Old..?" Zelda's voice wavered, and Izuku sighed.
"Zelda, she didn't mean it that way," he said, comforting his wife.
"Something I said? I'm sorry," Inko apologized, but Izuku waved it off.
"Mom, it's okay, you couldn't have known," he said. "Zelda is a bit self-conscious about her age."
"Why? She's beautiful," Inko said, and Zelda let a squeak, and brought her hands up to hide her quickly reddening face. Izuku chuckled.
"Not her looks. Her age." Izuku explained with a soft smile on his face. It was one of the idiosyncrasies his wife had that he couldn't even hope to understand.
"Physically, we're about the same age, I'm actually a little older. But she's technically over a hundred years old."
"Oh. Wait. What?!"
"It's a long story."
***
As night fell, a few buses arrived at the Wild, Wild Pussycats' forest, and Class A filed off them.
"While this little trip is for relaxation, training is encouraged." Aizawa had said, but his students, used to their teacher's style of teaching, heard something else.
'You'd better train, or else.'
As the class walked towards the living quarters, there was little chatter, the girls gossiping, and the boys grumbling about Aizawa's thinly veiled threat.
"Man, I want to relax," Sero complained.
"You want to deal Aizawa-sensei's wrath, do you?" Ojiro replied.
"You know, Midoriya probably would've trained anyway."
Kaminari's a poor attempt at a joke immediately put a dampener on the mood, and Jiro didn't hesitate to let the electric quirk user that he'd just said the worst possible thing.
"Dumbass, did you really have to bring him up?" she said, watching as the boy rubbed where she'd stabbed him. She didn't have the usual bite in her voice.
The entire class was now in a bad mood, and with good reason. Izuku was the one that riled up everyone else to get stronger. Watching him struggle, rack his brain, to find a way to succeed, to be a hero, to win, was one of the most inspiring things to watch, as some of the faculty members could attest to.
That was tainted now.
When the 'truth' came out that it was all a lie, the boy's classmates had a violent reaction to the news, none so more than Iida, Uraraka and Bakugo. Bakugo's was to be expected, given his personality. Uraraka looked up to Izuku as a role model and might've had a crush on him, so to have that image shattered, it hurt her. She was one of the most affected by the footage, and she re-watched it over and over again afterwards, shedding tears every time she did.
Iida, Todoroki and Bakugo dealt the most damage. Uraraka would've been on that list, but she just... stopped before the 'combat exercise' was called off. Apparently she'd heard Izuku say something, but she refused to explain herself.
"Stop reminiscing about that villain," Iida said, his tone firm, and the class listened. Aizawa watched them with a frown as they filtered into the quarters.
"Why did you have to go do such a thing, problem child..." he muttered to himself. He began to make his way towards the faculty lounge (He wanted coffee). And before he could open the door, he noticed a red glow.
'My quirk isn't activated, so why is my vision different?'
Aizawa looked around for the source of the crimson light, before he looked up.
'Is the moon red?'
***
Zelda told stories about her time as a princess, while her and the girl took turns styling each other's hair.
Inko and Izuku sat in the kitchen, Izuku telling his mother about his experience in Hyrule.
"When we weren't exploring, we had this nice place in Hateno-" Izuku froze mid-sentence, and he began to search the room for something.
"Sweetie?" Inko asked, concerned.
Izuku's eyes landed on the Master Sword, propped up on one of the table's legs. He reached for the weapon, and picked it up, still in it's jeweled scabbard. He stared at it, before slowly unsheathing the blade. To his mother's slight shock, the weapon was letting off a small, but noticeable pulsing light.
"Is it glowing?" his mother asked.
"It's talking to me," Izuku muttered, his attention focused on the pulsing glow. Zelda's suddenly stepped into the kitchen, Eri sleeping in her arms. It seemed she'd overheard that.
"What's it saying?" she asked.
"There's something very wrong," he said, his brow furrowing.
Sword in hand, Izuku got up from the kitchen table and briskly stepped over to the windows and drew open the curtains. A pale crimson hue seeped into the apartment. Looking into the night sky, a look of horror and disbelief crept onto his face. Zelda turned to look out the glass, and at the sight, adopted an expression similar to her husband's.
"What's wrong?" Inko got up, and walked over to the window, standing next to her son, who had his eyes glued on the moon.
The moon was different, Inko realized. It was now a deep scarlet hue, as opposed to the usual pale white. She'd assumed the red light in the room was coming from a light outside. But the moon's strange color didn't explain the terror on the couple's faces.
Zelda began to hyperventilate, before Izuku placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She placed a hand on his, appreciative of the gesture. He looked back out the window.
"Something is very, very wrong," Izuku breathed, looking out at the blood moon.