hero's shadow // mha

79) believed a viper

People never ask much of Nezu.

He is one of the most intelligent beings alive, and while he isn't in a very high place of authority as a principal of a hero school, one of thousands out there, he still has contacts all over the globe. He is comforted by the fact that should he ever need a favor or deal, there are hundreds of people in his debt who will come to him without hesitation.

Once he asks, they'd have no other choice, really.

Nezu is known far and wide, but mostly for unsavory reasons. He is recognizable, sure, and people are usually able to call him out by name, but half the time he is not revered or met with awe.

Rather, he is met with disgust, disbelief, and jealousy.

He has no fans. The people who see him in the city don't come up to him excitedly for pictures or autographs. They don't squeal in amazement like they do for other pro heroes. Only the babies do. Only the children.

And Nezu loves children, but not in the fond oh, they're so cute way. Instead, it's more in the ferocious I need to protect them way.

Nezu needs to try his very hardest to cultivate the world they're in so that the future is a safer one for every being out there, human or not. Nezu hears the toddlers gasp and point at him when he's walking in a store, and he also hears the way their parents shush them and drag them along, towards the other end of the aisle.

Even in a population full of mutants of all sorts, he is still considered an anomaly. He is considered wrong.

A freak show. A pet.

Nezu is called many things: rat, bear, stoat, sable, badger, mink, mutt— the list is never ending.

But he pays those terms no mind.

Why should he have fans? He is a pro hero, but that doesn't mean he's going to be famous. He's not in the top rankings, and he doesn't exactly have his own branded agency, so why would anyone actually look up to him?

To the world, Nezu will always be some lucky bastard mammal that managed to get a quirk. They say it like it's a blessing, like Nezu tried out for it, like he asked for it.

The Principal gives his all anyway. He doesn't judge. He doesn't hold grudges against those who think this way. He merely learns, teaches, and thinks.

He yearns for knowledge. He lives for trial and error. That's what his purpose is. At least, that's what he's good at, so it's best he sticks with it, right?

He stands in the middle of a living room in one of his secured apartments in the middle of nowhere. It's dark, as his blackout windows and curtains block every inch of light coming through. With a wave of his paw, his room comes to life in sparks of blue and red and green.

His holograms greet him with their corresponding AI databases, and they're everywhere he turns.

Books line the walls with notes sticking out of the pages at random. His creations whirl around the couches and maneuver through the apartment, completing their designated roles.

Similar to his frenzied works, Nezu paces. His eyes are narrowed, and he keeps his tail swishing until he can barely take the sensation of the fur dragging against the carpet any longer.

It's one of those nights. They're more and more frequent for reasons Nezu hasn't quantified entirely yet.

"I want its brain."

The words come from outside the scratched glass. They're hard to understand. He wishes he was allowed out again.

"Sir, we can't possibly extract it and keep him alive—"

"Don't care. I want it ready by morning."

Morning? Morning. He sleeps, and when he wakes, that's morning, isn't it? He thinks so. That's how it works sometimes. But is morning safe anymore? After hearing that?

"You... you want us to..."

There's a breathy hiss. It hurts his ears.

"Prep it for surgery, dammit. Or kill it first, whatever. Just don't bruise the brain." A pause, and then, "It's a dumb fucking rodent for God's sake, why are you hesitating? It's just that mind we need. Oh, and that blood, too. I need to see just what made that quirk injection work."

"We've only established that it has positive effects on smaller mammals. We can't be certain the quirk injections will work for other species, much less humans. Shouldn't we wait until we see all the side effects before pushing forward with the release of—"

The flash of light following the explosive bang has his fur prickling. He stares from within his cage, unblinking, unmoving, and silent, as the red sprays against the glass.

His handler doesn't speak to him again.

The sun is going down. Nezu doesn't see it, but he knows it is. It's about that time.

His watch beeps incessantly, and bulbs of light flash at various points of the room. Nezu watches, his beady eyes going back and forth between the alerts.

"Sir, I must suggest you lie down. Your blood pressure is outside the normal level—"

"Give me a copy of the file our dear friend Mr. Shield made ten minutes ago."

"Of course." The AI pauses. " I maintain that you should seek medical—"

Nezu tips his head. "Is the copy downloaded?"

"Estimated time until completion is seven minutes."

His tail lashes in faint annoyance. "Mute until it's done."

"I don't believe that's in your best—"

Nezu turns away and swipes the air to get his holographic keyboard to come up. He quickly wipes the AI of all of its personality functions and installs a new pre-made set within it, hoping this time it won't turn out to be another failure.

For the majority of his life, Nezu has been ridiculed and questioned and mocked. He has no need for an AI that will do the same to him.

In all his years, perfecting a compassionate, sentient, yet obedient artificial companion has been nothing short of impossible. It's something that has consumed his waking hours.

He can never fully get the human characteristic down to the degree he wants.

Nezu tried for years. A child came closer than he ever did in less than a month.

As the Principal walks to his safety room, he ignores the charred, stolen remains of a silent, sad creature left on top of one of his benches.

She was too beautiful to die. It's a shame. She still serves a purpose, however. She makes for quite the blueprint, even with so many holes in her code.

Despite having been less than a year old by her untimely death, she still managed to live and grow by herself just from observation and research.

There is only darkness when the hatch shuts behind him inside his room. The concrete below him is cold, and so are the walls. They're cracked. Nezu likes it better that way.

He is enclosed inside this small box, but he is not afraid. His chest loosens, and he lights a cigar.

"Do you know why we created you?"

"Ninth," he manages in a small, shuddery voice. "I am... ninth trial."

"Yes, yes, of course, but beyond that. Come now, think. That's all you need to do." Gloved, wet hands grab onto the sides of his head, squeezing tightly. Fingers press into the bare skin where his fur is shaved off, and his vision swims. "That's all you can do, right? Don't worry about anything else now. Just show me."

His body is small. Bones stick out in places where he does not remember bones being before. He is wearing a skin that is not his, he feels. No, no, wait. He cannot feel. He isn't supposed to say he feels.

Is he feeling? Or is he thinking?

There's a difference. He was tasked to find it a week or so ago, but he is unsure. Time is always altered.

"I know you can do it," comes that dreadful whisper of encouragement. His claws scrape against the floor when he's picked up, and the air leaves him in slow, pitiful whoosh. "You're my extension. Show me. Show me how you can do it, but I can't."

The void surrounds Nezu from all sides. He floats in it, watching the embers from his cigar fly away like little moths covered in fire. They dance before his eyes, and he puffs out more smoke.

His miniature screen invades the black. A blue light makes him drag his gaze away from the moths to view the headline another AI is making him see.

He remains unsurprised, unexcited, and unhumorous, even as he sees Midoriya Izuku unleash his newest quirk.

As Rabbit, the boy is struggling to hold up the massive crane about to crash into the downtown part of the city. To any normal viewer, it would seem as though Rabbit is having an induced seizure midair, but to Nezu, this is something less natural.

The whips erupting from Midoriya's bleeding body merely make Nezu blink in mild distaste. He watches as dark, silk-like appendages take the form of wild black wings and keep the boy upright for more leverage, and he takes another drag.

His AIs are already on it, searching the databases in his collection and beyond for any quirk similar to the one being portrayed.

Unlike with all the others he researched, Nezu receives nothing in response.

There is no match, so he must go broader.

The angle changes then, and the wings grow even more powerful and intriguing.

Midoriya strains from the force of it, and heroes can be seen racing to try their best at catching the crane themselves.

Nezu wishes they would let it be. Sometimes, but not every time, he aches to see them fail.

His nails are bloody. He unhooks them from a limp body and stumbles aside. He's on all fours again. They don't like when he does that. He's supposed to be past that.

But they're not here anymore. He almost doesn't process this right away, even with the evidence matted on his paws and fur.

The floor is wet. It wasn't recently mopped.

He glances around, trembling with the aftermath of the recent serum, and—

His batchmates are limp behind him. Some are split in half. Others are still twitching with foamy mouths and tongues lolled out. The rest have holes in their chests.

Their blood is cold as it soaks into the pads of his paws. It's still pouring out of the gashes he can see, and he can't tear himself away from the milky, dull eyes and the frozen fear etched onto their expressions. He tries to stumble back, but his limbs won't cooperate.

His stumpy tail hits a burning, smoking gun, and his nose stings.

He is alone now, isn't he?

When did this occur? How long exactly did it take for him to come out of the shameful place? He didn't see any of them die, yet there they are.

Midoriya's mask is moving. He is talking, Nezu guesses. There is no one there, but that doesn't mean anything. Nezu has seen Midoriya talk to many invisible creatures. He knows more than anyone that the unseen can be just as real and terrifying as anything else that's physical in this world.

He takes a beeping gauntlet from the closest body's forearm. It fits snugly right against his leg and scans him, adapting quickly to the carrier change. Words pop up on the screen—his information. And there is one word he does not get in the midst of the paragraphs. What is it? Why was he never taught this one?

The screen is cracked, and he can barely read it anyway, so he continues on without faltering.

He walks to what he knows is the exit to the broken facility, red staining every inch of his white fur. Blood drips from his cheek and flank, and he arrives at the door with some difficulty.

"Identifier," the door prompts, flashing orange. It hurts his eyes.

Identifier? Is that like a name? He was never given one of those. Did he ever have one besides rat and rodent and some other combinations of letters and numbers and symbols?

He refers back to his gauntlet screen, figuring this will be enough to describe what he is. Or what he is supposed to be.

In English, it is only around four letters. It is simple, easy to remember. It is all he knows he should be.

He tells the door his name, and the exit is opened for him.

Nezu walks away from his birthplace, but he is no more free than when he lived inside that tiny glass box.

The AI he reset interrupts his musings, and this time it sounds close to being reluctant. "Sasaki Mirai, requesting video call."

At the same time, another voice cuts in politely. "Tsukauchi Naomasa, requesting—"

His nose twitches, and he ignores the rest of the words. He gets up and retreats from his small room, deciding that that's enough remembrance for the day; he has a job to do. "Merge and accept them."

He snuffs out his cigar and lights another, moving back towards his living area.

Nezu's addictions are not the only horrifically human thing about him.

Izuku has been impaled before. Many, many times in fact.

It was fun the first time. The second time it was a little more painful. The third was when he was like okay, this is a little freaky. But it wasn't until the fourth time that he decided he didn't like it at all.

Now, this is not the fifth time. Nor is it the sixth. It's somewhere in the twenties, actually.

The higher the number the better, he swears, because gradually a person's immunity to penetration will get better and better. It's just science.

At least, this is what Izuku tells himself when he sees the dark, blood coated tendrils that are shooting out from his chest and extending out into various directions. This is what he tells himself when more cold whips protrude from his back where his shoulder blades are and dance dangerously around him.

More follow those, and they seem to escape from the pores in his skin and spread out on either side of him, attaching to the nearby buildings like spiderwebs. The whips shoot from his palms too, traveling at a breakneck speed down towards the falling crane. Izuku jerks harshly when the whips wrap around the more stable points of the crane and contract, forcing him to hold it as he now hangs in the air, held up by the buildings on either side and—and the...

Pain rocks over him once more when a weight is added to his spine, bending him back further. It feels as though someone shoved a firecracker right between his vertebrae and set it off, and Izuku can do nothing but take it as more prickling sensations ignite like a gunpowder trail.

He doesn't have any time to process what the fuck is happening before he chokes when more tendrils shoot out from his goddamn mouth. Moisture forms in his eyes due to the feeling, and he writhes like a drowning man, trying desperately to control himself.

He's hyper aware of every movement down below—he can sense the heroes and hear the remaining dinosaurs and can feel the way the crane is threatening to give way. All Might is still far away, moving fast and powerfully as he takes down the onslaught of bigger dinosaurs in the middle of the chaos. Izuku's muscles burn and stretch, and God for a second Izuku thinks he might just split into two.

He can't keep it up. He won't be strong enough, even with whatever these whips are. Izuku won't be able to—

The tendrils are gathering at his back and coiling up, seemingly sentient. Izuku strains, but he can't manage to turn his head and see what's happening.

The horror settles into his stomach even despite that, because they almost feel like—

"Kid!" Banjou shouts, and he's right by Izuku's ear.

The whips zip around, slashing against the sides of the buildings and streaking through the air. Izuku can't pay those ones any mind; he is only concerned with keeping his hold on the crane, which doesn't seem to be something Banjou approves of.

"Pay attention, kid, or you're gonna get yourself killed!" Fingers snap in his face, and Izuku forces himself to look at the man floating in front of him. The tendrils coming from his mouth prevent him from audibly replying, but he hopes the sheer panic on his face is enough to get the fifth user of One for All to help him, and fast.

And while Izuku is relieved to see him, another dangerous thought prods his mind at his presence. Because Izuku has never really believed in simple coincidences.

This can't be Black Whip, he thinks. It just can't. This seems a hell of a lot more dangerous than anything Izuku has ever noticed from watching Banjou use his quirk. He never imagined Black Whip would feel like this. He didn't think it would do this—so the only logical explanation is that it's not Black Whip.

Terror grips him tight, making him feel like a coil about to spring loose. The weights on his back make sense now all of a sudden. It's familiar. It's chilling.

It's horrific.

Because why does Izuku have a large set of raging black wings extending from his shoulder blades? They don't look like the wings in Izuku's dreams, and they don't resemble Tsubasa's, either, so what are they? And why are they made from the whips? How is that even possible!

But even beyond all of those things, Izuku can't possibly have Black Whip since Banjou is dead and can't be stolen from. So even if Izuku wanted to steal from him, it simply wouldn't work! Well, unless it wasn't Izuku who stole it. Maybe it was his vestige counterpart! Is that—

"Have a crisis later, brat! Focus on the mission! You've got my quirk, and it's a lot stronger than when I had it, so start thinking, dammit!" Banjou's large hand grabs a hold of Izuku's face, and the boy swears he can feel the ghostly touch. The shock is enough to have the whips in his mouth receding back in and disappearing. "You've seen me use it a load of times, so you should be familiar. Just focus and don't let your fear get a hold of you, ya hear? Think of what you need to do, and command them to do it! They're your tools!"

Tools. What the fuck kind of tools is he talking about? Izuku has never had any tool like this before, and he's made some pretty interesting machines where—

"They're just like ropes!" Banjou lets go of him and moves to the side, pointing at the crane. "They won't break as long as you concentrate!"

Izuku shakes his head vigorously when he starts to be pulled downward due to the force of the crane's descent. "I'm sorry! I don't know what—I don't understand—!"

"You don't have to understand right now! You've got a job, boy! Don't let that crane out of those whips! Explaining can come later!"

The reminder of what he's responsible for right now pushes Izuku back on track. He focuses on the way the whips far down below are wrapped around the stronger points of the crane to help pull it up, slowing its fall. It feels like everything is going in slow motion to Izuku, like he's underwater, trapped beneath salty, foamy water.

His eyes burn, and he struggles to maintain his grip. He manages to hold it with great difficulty, muscles contracting and spasming. He can barely see with the red sparks and black tendrils waving erratically all around him. It's like Black Whip is unsure of its purpose.

The crane is a hundred feet from the ground now. Izuku is almost there, but he has to go even slower or else the destruction will still be large.

"You're slipping," Banjou echoes in his mind, a clear warning in his voice. "Attach some more to the buildings to stabilize yourself. Those wings alone won't suffice here. They're damn cool, but they can only do so much since they're not fully concentrated."

I know that, Izuku thinks, his jaw hurting with how hard he's gritting his teeth. I can feel that now, dammit!

The pained sound that comes from his throat would usually make Izuku cringe in embarrassment, but right now he's too busy to care. He tries to direct some of the whips to reattach himself to the buildings, but none of them respond.

Banjou sounds uncharacteristically soft when he speaks again. Izuku listens with wide eyes, his brain turned to mush as his senses narrow onto just this advice. "You carry all these whips inside ya, son. It's just energy, that's all it is. And you've got a helluva lot of it. They're waiting just beneath your skin, so visualize them and send them out. Have the end goal in mind!" A weight presses against Izuku's temples. "Tell them exactly what they're doing, when and where, and then execute them!"

What this means is they feed off of Izuku's emotions and are sensitive to any disruption of thoughts, so what the boy has to do is, firstly, calm the fuck down, and secondly, treat them exactly how he treats Pull.

Because it's basically the same thing, right? With Pull, he imagines a string connecting to the objects he wants to move towards him. For this quirk, if he just imagines a string going in whatever direction he needs the whips to, they should follow the line, and it shouldn't be too difficult or even all that different from—

Wait, no. That's too many steps! The tendrils are the strings. He just has to visualize their path, and they become that connecting string. This way, there is zero delay!

With this new realization, Izuku furrows his brows and bites his lip as he mentally marks all of the black whips he has extended from his body right now. He excludes the wings on his back, as there's no telling how many make up those, if they're even considered multiple at all, and he imagines a few extra whips coming out between the existing strands.

Come on, Izuku thinks, blinking and seeing the flashes of destruction and darkness that threaten to occur in the event he drops the crane too early. Gotta get good at this fast. Worry about what this means later, dumbass.

His ribs feel like they're expanding again, jutting out from his skin and tearing at the scarred flesh. Izuku isn't freaked out about this now—in fact, he's ecstatic, as this probably means it's working.

A large, wild tendril forms out of his pores and seeps through his costume, shooting from his side to attach to the building around thirty feet away. It yanks him a little closer as another whip attaches to the building on the opposite side of him, and it feels, weirdly enough, like he's trapped in the middle of a web.

The crane groans loudly, and metal scrapes against metal, filling the air with screeching. Izuku grabs a hold of the whips coming from his palms and imagines them constricting in time with the way he pulls them in a curl up.

It works, and even though Izuku's head feels like it's splitting in two, the boy doesn't let up as the crane moves slower and slower and slower—he doesn't dare stop his ministrations until the crane comes to an almost complete stop some twenty feet above the ground. That's when he drops it, and he watches with slight panic as the dust storm billows up and around the street corners. He yelps when the whips restrict back into him, making him free fall through the air hundreds of feet above the ground, confused, wingless, and terrified. He clumsily shoots out more whips than intended, hoping to create a web for himself to fall into, but they don't connect and also don't stick for long. One manages to grab a hold of a balcony, though, so Izuku swings into the side of a neighboring skyscraper and crashes into the fire escape, panting heavily.

Holy shit. Holy fuck.

"Banjou," Izuku gasps, gripping his heart as the top part of the fire escape breaks off and hits him in the stomach. "Banjou, sir, did you see that? Jesus, that was—"

The fifth user of One for All is nowhere to be seen. Izuku's throat closes up then, remembering what Banjou told him. The man didn't seem mad about the situation, exactly, so Izuku couldn't have 'stolen' it. But he said it was indeed his quirk, so it's definitely Black Whip, but how else could Izuku have gotten it? Maybe Banjou was supposed to say something but didn't get a chance.

Or maybe it's because he is mad.

Izuku tries to turn over onto his side but cries out when the metal grating scratches at his wounded shoulder. He flips onto his back and sits there, gasping raggedly.

What happened to explaining? He thinks angrily, though he knows he won't receive a reply.

Maybe this is a punishment disguised as a blessing. Izuku wouldn't put it past One for All to do something like that. It's a stockpiling quirk, so it wouldn't be completely out of the realm of possibility for it to pull some shit like this.

Izuku has been spending a lot of his free time in front of his father's realm. He can't help it. It's like another part of his soul. Despite the warnings, despite the very clear threat from his own fucking uncle about listening and indulging those voices... Izuku keeps going back like a poor drug addict to their dealer.

Maybe Yoichi is doing this to stop Izuku. He's not as soft and kind as he presents himself, surely. To be fair, he is All for One's brother. There's no way he doesn't at least have a little bit of—

Izuku's chest tightens, like someone is wrapping his lungs up with a rubber band. He chokes, now on his hands and knees. Fuck, yeah, okay, he didn't mean that. He really shouldn't be talking shit about the first user. It's disrespectful, it's unkind, All Might would smack him upside the head for it, and—and not to mention it's extremely dangerous.

Shame blooms in Izuku's stomach, and it almost hurts as bad as the burns now branding their way onto his skin. It seems the whips left their marks on him after all.

Izuku is only glad that he has confirmation he wasn't imagining all of that.

After allowing himself a minute to calm down his heart rate, as bleeding out at this rate wouldn't do any good, Izuku drops clumsily down from the building, using the balconies as stepping stones. The heroes are now patrolling the areas, looking for any citizen they might've missed. More dinosaurs are coming their way, and Izuku sighs to himself.

He trusts that the heroes have it from here. Izuku's task is technically fulfilled, as all the civilians are safely evacuated and being tended to. So, in retrospect, Izuku should follow suit and evacuate himself or, at the very least, help the heroes hold the line where the city has been blocked off.

But Izuku's skin is stretched taut, and worry is gnawing at him like a rat with rotting cheese.

How long has this fighting been going on? And All Might is still going? His time limit should be up soon, as in, now.

But when Izuku turns his gaze to where the number one hero and a couple other lower level sidekicks are attempting to contain the multiplication of the dinosaurs, the boy can see that it doesn't look like an end is near.

So, Izuku's next choice is just logical. It's not his fault, and he will not apologize for this later on.

Even though he is beginning to feel more like himself here, with Black Whip making an appearance and all, Izuku is also Rabbit, and he owes this to the people.

It's a strange thing to admit—feeling like himself. The lines between Rabbit and Midoriya Izuku and even Deku have become blurry recently, and that's unlike him. With each passing day, he's becoming less and less peculiar about the differences.

Izuku ignores the biting pains in his thighs and rushes to where most of the current fighting is happening. It's not exactly hard to miss, saying as there are multiple miniature Godzilla-like creatures now churning out more and more dinosaurs. With each one taken down, five more come to replace them. It's an overwhelming, never-ending wave, and it's unclear to Izuku where the signals are coming from—because if he's right about this, there should be at least one spot where the orders are being transmitted to continue making or releasing the dinosaurs.

Extract is helpful in informing Izuku that this is not the result of a teleportation quirk bringing in pre-existing animals, but rather a machine or mutant capable of taking matter and reworking it to create a condensed living creature.

Which is impressive but also highly, highly annoying, as this means there can probably be infinite dinosaurs incoming since there is infinite matter.

And All Might, for all his strength, cannot last for infinity.

Izuku hoists himself up onto a ledge after wrapping some black cloth around his shoulder in hopes of it blending in with his costume. He watches as a new hero he cannot name off the top of his head is hit in the side and sent flying towards a billboard. Izuku leaps up and snags them before they can hit it, and he carefully sets them down on the floor.

After nothing more than a thankful nod, the hero is jumping right back into action, fighting off the multiplying dinosaur hoard. Izuku figures he should try to find the main source of the issue if they want any hope of ending this soon.

He leaps across buildings in the direction of where he sees his mentor. All Might meets him halfway, however, as a lucky hit from one of the Godzillas has him skidding across multiple roofs and landing on a helicopter pad about a half mile away. Izuku beats away the urge to acknowledge the irony and instead jumps onto All Might's large shoulder when he reaches him, carefully balancing on the wide muscle while shifting to a crouch.

All Might doesn't flinch, of course, as he likely heard him coming a while ago. The man just wipes his mouth and throws him a sidelong glare. "I thought I told you to stay away from fights you can't win."

"All the civilians are evacuated, sir!" Izuku assures, not daring to make eye contact with him yet. He focuses on pinpointing all of the threats. "Your time limit is almost up—that's the only reason we haven't finished this yet, let's be honest. If you let me help just this once, we can get this done much faster."

Yagi frowns suddenly, neck craning. "You're bleeding quite heavily from—"

"It's already healing, so I can still fight as well as always. Besides, look at yourself, sir. I'm in better shape than you are."

The teasing doesn't relax All Might like Izuku hoped it would. "Shit," the man groans to himself instead, "Aizawa is going to kill me."

"He doesn't have to know," Izuku says, pointedly ignoring the sounds of the multiple helicopters up above, most assuredly recording this.

Yagi tips his head in consideration. "You really are a bad influence on me."

Izuku just grins. "Is that a yes?"

All Might gives him what Izuku thinks is supposed to be a stern look, but the slight fondness on his face is clear as day. "I told you to evacuate after you finished, if you care to remember. It's like you don't listen to me at all these days."

"It must've slipped my mind, sir."

"There might be a slip of my hand in a second," Yagi warns, and when he straightens up, Izuku follows. "Follow me, and do as I say when I say it. Are we clear?"

This time, Izuku knows better than to disobey.

Even in his most weakened and physically exhausted state, All Might's prowess is still very clearly miles ahead of everyone else's. He is fast, scarily so. One moment he's there and the next all anyone can hear is the tail end of a whistle.

Yagi Toshinori is a walking missile, and it's hard to act as his hero partner. So, Izuku doesn't pretend to be. He's merely extra support to allow All Might a chance to get his shit done without any interruptions.

Izuku goes for the medium-sized creatures crawling up the Godzillas and picks them off so Yagi won't have to worry about ambushes. He knows Yagi has been trying to find the true source of the attack this entire time but has been a little preoccupied with protecting most of the city buildings from the creatures. Preservation of property in such a high-traffic area is one of the biggest priorities in larger-scaled villain fights.

Izuku needs to decapitate these dinosaurs here as well, but the necks are reinforced with tough, layered skin. It's much harder to get through than the other ones Izuku fought, telling him that they're evolving—er, being created differently.

So, they're being watched. Izuku just needs to find who is doing it and where.

Izuku uses the sharp end of his staff to slide underneath the dinosaurs' bellies and slice out their hearts, figuring it's much easier than attempting to decapitate. All Might, however, is so strong that he can punch right through some of the bigger dinosaurs to kill them instantly. But not even he can do the same to the Godzilla ones.

After a while of executing any creature he sets his eyes on, Izuku realizes something. The resistance of the dinosaurs is getting stronger and stronger as they appear before him, and pretty soon their durability becomes greater than that of the Godzillas', even the newer ones.

Izuku leaps up onto one of their arms and shouts at Yagi as he flies past. "The larger they are, the weaker the resistance! There's a limit for them at this size!"

"Must be harder to create the big ones, then!" All Might affirms.

It probably takes a lot more energy, so whoever is doing this is just attempting to create mini tanks with the smaller dinosaurs in order to protect the bigger ones. So, I was right. The Godzillas are the focal points, meaning they're more important. They've gotta...

Izuku's heart flutters at the revelation. "Zero pointers! They're like zero pointers! They're probably transmitting the signals to keep the attack going!"

All Might lands a Detroit Smash on the Godzilla that Izuku is clinging to, making the boy jump back and catch a hold on another one, just narrowly avoiding comically large claws. "Then we must target them first! For an opponent this size, how do we get past their defenses, my boy?

"Continuous buildup of kinetic energy!" He answers without missing a beat.

Izuku and Yagi commence a game of ping pong with the creatures, tearing through the endless waves by passing them around to each other. They leave no chance for any kind of defensive attack or retaliation—they have no time for that. This is already going on for long enough, and All Might is looking more tired than ever before.

The green-haired boy wants to tell him to take a step back, to stay away so he won't accidentally deflate, but he refrains at the last moment, not wanting to get even further up on his shit list. Besides, he trusts Yagi's abilities.

Izuku slices through an Aucasaurus with his staff and has just enough time to use an air shot to dodge out of the way of a thick, feathered tail swinging in from the right.

He twists and uses a billboard as a spring to launch himself at the new attacker, only to falter upon witnessing the behemoth of a fucking dinosaur facing him from its perch on a wide balcony, tail swishing menacingly.

A therizinosaurus.

Izuku's stomach travels to his throat. His eyes linger on the meter-long claws, and he skips a breath. Now he knows where the inspiration for Tsubasa's nomu came in.

His first two fatal attacks land quickly, one right after another, but the therizinosaurus gets in a swift kick with its powerful hind leg before falling to its end, and Izuku would've splattered right against the concrete wall of a nearby building without All Might catching him.

The reporters are eating this shit up, no doubt. Another helicopter is flying overhead despite the number one hero's orders to move away from the Godzilla creatures, and Izuku feels a tad queasy at the fact that he's currently being monitored by thousands of people, if not more. For an attack this large on a major city, and with this many heroes (not to mention All Might) joining in to help, there's no way the entire country isn't watching.

This is probably the most coverage Rabbit has ever had, even including his fight with Stain.

All Might shouts at Izuku to follow him, and Izuku snaps right back to attention. One moment he's catching the dinosaur his mentor throws at him, finishing it off with a quick superpowered slice, and the next he's jumping onto a roof right after All Might, following behind at his rear. Except Yagi doesn't even glance back at Izuku as he runs, and he's quickly increasing the distance between them with just how fast he's running.

Izuku realizes why he got his attention immediately after, as the earth trembles and causes some of the weaker buildings to crack and collapse in on themselves. A large, four hundred foot tall creature resembling that of an overgrown, mutilated baryonyx is rising from the ground, still being formed by an unknown source.

The long and flat studded mouth has Izuku cringing, but All Might doesn't slow his pace or falter, so Izuku doesn't either. Instead, he encourages his legs to pump faster. He needs to catch up. All Might is twenty yards ahead of him now, and that's far too much.

Izuku grits his teeth and activates more of One for All, dipping dangerously close to forty percent in just his feet and calves. His muscles protest the motion, and his lungs struggle to keep up with his labored breathing, but he moves forward. And slowly, it happens; he begins to gain speed. The yards between them decrease even as All Might's limbs appear to move faster. Izuku's skin is stretched taut across his jawbones as the pressure forces it all back.

Forty becomes forty-five percent, and pretty soon he's coming up right beside the Symbol of Peace, a blur of red. He flashes across rooftops and fights to keep in stride with his teacher, forcing himself to breathe like he was taught to maximize his output.

Izuku glances beside him, not breaking the pace. All Might is grinning wide with his eyes trained on their newest objective, and though he's obviously straining right now due to his limit, his smile doesn't look forced. The setting sun is right behind him, outlining his body in an almost surreal golden glow. The warmth hits Izuku in the face, and his eyes sparkle.

Because he's right here, keeping pace with fucking All Might, and he feels more alive than ever before even with blood dripping down and staining his brand new costume.

All Might glances down at him then, and his smile widens to reveal white teeth. Something like pride splits across his face and he laughs, making Izuku grin stupidly alongside him. A large hand comes up to rest on Izuku's greasy head, and though the touch doesn't last long, Izuku's heart soars anyway.

And then time shifts back to normal, and All Might is launching himself at the dinosaur's arms, leaving a shockwave behind. His first goal is to take out the claws, and Izuku gladly leaves him to it. The boy shoots to the floor to take care of the joints, hoping to at least get one leg down. He doesn't want to make it fall suddenly, as a creature this large would cause the same catastrophic damage as the crane would've.

As Izuku successfully takes out the left leg, effectively paralyzing part of that side, he thinks that maybe he can allow himself to believe that in this moment, he's made something. He doesn't know what it is, but he thinks that this has got to be a milestone of some sort.

A small part of Izuku wonders if his father is watching. Another, guilty part hopes that his mother is instead.

And even deeper down, he hopes that at least one of them is proud of what they see.

The arms on this mysterious creature are too dense for Toshinori to smash straight through at the moment. If he were a little more awake and aware, it would be a piece of cake, but as it stands he can't do anything about his current state of mind right now but deal with it and make up for the deficit.

So, he improvises.

He rips out one of the atrociously long, white claws and uses it as a blade to slice off each of the 'fingers' between the metacarpal and phalange bones. He has to blast away four attempts to decapitate him before he rids the reptile thing of its weapons. With that out of the way, Toshinori can focus on other things.

Like taking care of that mouth.

The only concern he has is getting caught inside its jaws, so all he needs to do is stay on the outside and keep a fair space away from snapping range. This way, he's able to unleash quick attacks to get rid of a few of its sharp teeth here and there, eventually leaving the dinosaur mutant with nothing but gums.

There's a shift in the air high above, and Toshinori's left ear rings a little. Before he can get a chance to look, Midoriya is flying up to perch once more on his shoulder, panting. "He's up there! The bad guy! He—it's like he just appeared! He must be making them and controlling them simultaneously using his quirk, but if that's so, how did he—"

Toshinori is already on it. He locks eyes with the very terrified looking young man crouching atop his latest creation and crosses the distance between them in two seconds. With how much destruction this man caused in the span of twenty minutes, it's almost laughable how easy it is for Toshinori to restrain him.

After checking to make sure there are no explosives or other electronic devices on him, Toshinori puts the man to sleep by applying sudden pressure on a point to the side of his neck. That's exactly what they're taught in heroics in situations like this—if the user is telepathically communicating with or controlling their 'goons' (in Gran Torino's words) without a remote device, the safest option is to render them immobile to break off the quirk's connection.

Right after this, the entire city comes to a halt. The creatures down below stop moving, as if confused, and there's not a sound to be heard besides the birds and helicopters far above.

So, Toshinori would say it's safe to assume the immediate threat has stopped.

He lands back safely on a roof near Midoriya, instinctively checking to make sure his ward has no new injuries. The boy seems to be perfectly fine, as he's still talking to himself quietly about the logistics of what happened.

"—must've used his matter manipulation quirk to mask his energy so I wouldn't feel him. I need to see if—"

Toshinori interrupts him by stepping in front of his line of sight. "Tartarus officials should be arriving any minute, and it looks like we've got it handled here, so you go ahead and head back, young man." He slings the villain over his shoulder so he can more efficiently carry him. "I'll probably be late ensuring there's no more trouble, so don't—"

"Hey, All Might," Midoriya begins, blankly staring behind Toshinori.

"—wait up for me or—"

"It's regenerating."

Well, here's to another not-so-easy adventure for All Might! His earlier assumption seems to have been incorrect. He was never actually confident it would hold up, as things can never be easy for him. He's also fought countless villains like this before, so he knew the chances of being able to wrap this up quickly were slim.

Quickly assessing the new scenario after passing the villain to Midoriya, Toshinori realizes the miniature dinosaurs have all begun moving again, half of them going towards the city lines to get to the civilians and the other half heading right for the downed Godzilla.

And just as Midoriya said, the large creature's skin is smoking and rippling as its body regenerates and consumes the bodies of the other smaller ones. It uses its siblings as fuel to build itself up and up and up, and it's not stopping.

It's becoming even bigger than it was before, and the sound of it is just horrid.

Toshinori curses inwardly. Blood is beginning to bubble at the corners of his mouth, and he can feel the steam coming off of him at an even higher rate. I don't have much left...

He wipes his face and prepares to jump. "Take the villain to the ground and wait for the transport vehicle. I'll—"

"You're not as cool when you're being stupid, sir."

Toshinori guffaws. "What did you say?"

Midoriya tips his head, making the bunny ears on his costume frame his dirtied face. "No offense, but that thing is really huge, right? You can take it down easy-peasy, yeah, but you'll probably deflate right after landing the blow, and the helicopters will surely catch it—I mean, unless you want me to fling them away!"

The tone his student uses to suggest the idea isn't a sarcastic one, no. It's one that tells Toshinori that Midoriya will one hundred percent do it if asked, which is somehow even worse.

Midoriya moves so he's in his direct line of sight. "I've got an idea, so can I try something?"

Toshinori sets his jaw, thinking hard. He can barely move without coughing or straining now, as moving so quickly before really did a number on his waning physical body and stamina. There are no other heroes available that Toshinori can see being of any real or efficient help, so what else is there to do?

He's in a lose-lose scenario, and for the first time in a while, the Symbol of Peace is momentarily stuck. He's hit with an unwelcome question: what would his master do?

Would she let Midoriya knock himself out, or would she prioritize his safety and be responsible by doubling down on the previous order given?

Toshinori is not his master. God knows how hard he's tried to be half the hero she was, but even pushing all of that aside—what choice does he have right now?

The blond lets his gaze flit back to the regenerating dinosaur, eyeing its smoking body. The area right between its hanging arms, just below the chest area, has less skin being formed to protect it. It's a sure weak spot, and even as Toshinori notices it, he sees that it's slowly being covered up.

Which means in order to take advantage of the temporary weakness, they have to act now. And it's already clear that the villain was redirecting existing matter and using large creatures as transmission points in the cities, so the only logical course of action at the moment is to take out this one at its core to end the signals all across the board.

If the weak spot is hit straight on, the entire thing should collapse and stop sending the transmissions, similar to how Young Midoriya stopped all of the robots after taking down the zero pointer during the entrance exam.

Midoriya turns to him after setting the villain down, seeming to reach the same conclusion. "All Might, throw me!"

Toshinori hides his grin behind his hand, not surprised by the suggestion. They're both on the same level of thinking, but Midoriya is thinking about becoming the missile himself.

"That's incredibly dangerous," he musters, trying to find an excuse to say no to his plan.

"I've done more dangerous stunts and lived, like jumping out of a burning plane!" Midoriya reminds him happily, as if that helps his case. "But you know I can withstand the pressure. Just do it, rocket launcher style! With as much strength as you have."

Toshinori pauses, haunted briefly by the image of the boy's broken, bloody corpse splattered against a building as a result of a failed attempt. But then he sees Midoriya's bōstaff extend to reveal an electrified blade at the end of it, and he has to admit that it's a good plan. It's too great of a risk for Toshinori to just throw the staff from here, as he might miss the correct mark or it might not go deep enough inside the skin. He has to get closer, and get closer fast, with the more force the better. And he can't physically do it.

But Midoriya can.

The teen jumps and balances on Toshinori's outstretched palm, stabilizing himself with a sinister little giggle. "Trust me, this'll be fun!"

Toshinori only grunts, mind made up. "I'm gonna lose my job," he mutters, preparing himself for the throw.

He can't miss this one, so he has to make sure he's focused.

Midoriya rolls his shoulders and grips his staff tightly. "Just tell them you didn't know who I was since I've got this new costume. I'm below your pay grade anyway, so they can't blame you."

The pro hero rears back, digging his shoes into the concrete. Please, let this turn out okay.

He yells at Midoriya to prepare himself and pivots. Cracks form in the concrete beneath his feet at the mere force of the blast, and a shockwave rocks the building. Midoriya is sent catapulting through the air, a blur of black and green and red.

Toshinori stumbles and drops to one knee, panting as he desperately waits for the smoke to clear so he can see what's happening. He forces himself up and starts to jog towards the scene after ensuring the villain is still immobilized. He watches with worried eyes as Midoriya soars towards the large dinosaur's weak spot, ready to speed up and hopefully catch him if the throw turns out to have been too weak.

But it seems that's not needed. The boy screeches like a wild cat, either from adrenaline, glee, or fear, Toshinori isn't sure. When he gets close to the target, Midoriya twists in the air using a well-placed air shot and only narrowly dodges a fatal swipe from the creature. Toshinori swears his heart stops right then and there.

The boy plunges the katana straight into its chest, and Toshinori squints to try and see what happens next. Midoriya disappears fully inside it, as if being sucked in, and Toshinori's life nearly flashes before his eyes when the whole dinosaur begins to disintegrate and fall apart.

The reaction is instantaneous. Large chunks break off and hit the sides of buildings and pelt the streets, and Toshinori has to jump to the side to miss a piece of its arm falling on him.

"M— kid!" He shouts, voice raw. He races forward, vision going a little blurry. He enters frantic mode upon realizing that Midoriya still hasn't appeared out of the body, meaning he may still be inside of it. The last of the dinosaur's body crashes into the ground, taking out multiple small stores and businesses, and Toshinori struggles to maintain his form as he rushes towards it. He can't see him. Where is he?

Toshinori scans the entire block and then the next, but he still doesn't see any movement. Fuck! Come on, come on!

He rummages through the burning corpse, aware of the miniature dinosaurs dropping like flies around him in response. Heroes pull up beside him, wide-eyed and bloody from fighting.

"All Might?" Someone asks, but Toshinori can't look at them, because the kid is still missing and could be suffocating! He doesn't even have time to tell them!

"Texas Smash!" In a panic, he smashes away a larger chunk of guts and doesn't care when it splatters everywhere.

He leaps to the next, his movements getting more sluggish with each passing minute. Finally, he spots movement, and Toshinori shoves his entire torso in, trying to grasp anything with his hand. He finds skin and grabs a hold immediately, yanking the body out forcibly.

Midoriya pops out of the sludge like he's just been reborn, coughing up clear liquid. But he jumps out of Toshinori's arms just as fast and steadies himself with two hands out in front of him. "Holy shit!" He shouts, and it echoes around the clearing.

It's only then that Toshinori hears the photographers clicking away. They must've just arrived.

"All Might, did you see me? Did you see it? That was awesome!" Midoriya jumps around, slipping slightly due to the slick on the ground. "I've never done something like that before! Felt like I was going inside someone's intestines!"

Toshinori can only stare, flabbergasted. Fuck, why is he shaking? He's trembling badly, and not from the strain of One for All. Toshinori lets out a shuddery breath and rests both of his heavy hands on Midoriya's shoulders, content in feeling him alive and moving.

And you hopefully will never do that again if I can help it.

Midoriya gives him a stupid, victorious look, one that Toshinori remembers seeing in his mirror back when he was younger at UA, and the hero tries to wipe off the guts and synthetic blood from the boy's costume. "You did good, young man.

Midoriya stops his rambling about what exactly crashing inside the dinosaur felt like, gaze sparkling.

Toshinori looks past him and eyes the massive corpse again; the guts seem to go on forever down the road. "I wasn't able to defeat that large of a villain so efficiently until I was in my twenties." He looks back down and holds out a steaming fist. "Incredible work."

After a moment of hesitation, Midoriya holds up his own fist and knocks it into Toshinori's, his mask lighting up with an artificial smile.

It's then that the reporters descend upon them, having deemed things safe enough to intrude.

Midoriya is about to be bombarded, that much is clear, so Toshinori quickly steps in front of him and shoos him away with a hand behind his back. He seems to get his senses back, as Toshinori hears a near silent yes, sir! before a small gust of wind hits his neck. Rabbit runs away, and Toshinori swallows down his worry as best as he can before greeting the vultures.

"All Might, how did this villain come about!"

Another microphone is shoved in his face. "All Might! Tell us about your injuries! Just how strong was this supposed scientist?"

"Will this ever happen again? Is Japan safe from these kinds of attacks?"

"Over here, sir!"

A reporter with bubbles for hair pushes his way to the front. "All Might, when did you start working with vigilante Rabbit?"

It's the last one that makes Toshinori stiffen. Everyone else quiets down to hear the response, even the pro heroes who are now assessing their own injuries and cleaning up.

Toshinori puts on his best innocent face and tips his head with his hands on his hips. "Vigilante? What vigilante?"

The world erupts into chaos, and Toshinori gives a nervous smile. Oh, his agents are going to love this one. But even as he thinks this, Toshinori casts a subtle glance back at where he knows Midoriya went. He hopes the kid is going back to Toshinori's apartment, either that or at least Aizawa's.

He really did do good. He was reckless, sure, and he really pissed Toshinori off with his blatant disregard for his authority, but he still did it all with a smile. And Toshinori won't deny it, but he did feel safe when his student arrived on the scene to help him out. He was scared out of his mind, of course, and obviously a little angry at Midoriya for not taking his orders seriously. But he was also comforted by the fact that if he messed up, or if his time limit screwed him over, Midoriya would be there to help keep the people safe and the dinosaurs at bay until more heroes arrived.

He doesn't think he's supposed to say this, but he wouldn't have wanted it to have been anyone else.

The dying sun shines on his face, a nice contrast with the cool breeze coming in. As he manages to escape the growing throng of reporters to retrieve the villain, he can't help but take out his phone to call his old teacher.

He wants Torino to hear about what just happened from his perspective. He hopes he'll be just as proud as he is, even if he's not as vocal about it.

"Japan's Number One Hero saves the day again! But this time he had help!"

Izuku sits in Toshinori's penthouse, his knees up to his chest. He's watching the rerun of the recent fight, as nearly every single news channel is broadcasting it and talking about the event.

The entirety of Japan, plus half the globe, was watching. Whenever All Might is involved in a high risk situation, people love to drink it all in.

It's almost sick, to be honest.

Izuku watches himself fight on screen, reliving how it felt to physically be there, in the middle of the storm.

At the end of every coverage, the reporter shows the image that every single channel seems to have: Rabbit and All Might, covered in the debris and guts from the fallen dinosaur behind them, fist bumping each other with the blood-orange sun framing their bodies.

(If Izuku already has the image saved on his phone in fourteen different albums, well, nobody has to know.)

Despite feeling relatively warm, Izuku is still shaking a little from how exhausted his body is. The only reason he's not passed out right now is because he drank a few energy drinks he bought from a nearby store after taking a shower here. He has on some loose clothes, but even this thin fabric irritates his patched shoulder and sides.

His injuries were a pain to deal with, so he's lucky his regeneration helped out a bunch. He's also grateful All Might has almost anything medical-related you can imagine hidden away in the penthouse.

Izuku's phone buzzes suddenly, illuminating the room even more and making him jump. Oh, shit.

Lord of the Moths has sent a text. Izuku holds his breath in trepidation.

we won't be back until later tmrw. something came up.

Izuku stares at the words for a few minutes until he realizes that they're real, and then he slumps in relief. This is really good, actually, as this means Aizawa hasn't seen the news yet. It's probably because he can't access the media right now—in fact, he shouldn't even be texting Izuku. At the knowledge that Aizawa risked his safety to make sure Izuku wouldn't be worried about his absence, the boy feels something warm settle in his stomach.

He doesn't risk texting back, but he knows Aizawa can see that he read it anyway.

When Yagi comes back, it's past midnight, and he's in his smaller form. There are bandages peeking through his shirt, and Izuku is glad to see nothing looks too bad. The first thing Yagi does upon seeing him is take a look at his injuries despite Izuku's own protests about how he already patched himself up.

After a few minutes of Izuku sitting through Yagi's lecture about medical safety and responsibility (and enduring a tub of pain cream being put on his shoulder), the boy takes a deep breath and thinks to himself that there's no hiding what comes next.

Yagi obviously hasn't heard or seen anything on the news either about Izuku's recent... awakening. This is mostly because he's been busy with other things and has made it clear that Rabbit is not his priority, but at the same time he'll certainly find out about it really soon, and for this sort of thing, Izuku wants it to be from him directly.

So, after psyching himself up, Izuku very slowly and very carefully brings up the topic of what happened during the crane event. All Might, for his credit, remains cool and collected for the majority of the explanation, and he only interjects for clarification or for Izuku to repeat something.

When Izuku mentions the fifth user of One for All, he sees All Might's breathing pick up. His concern leaks into the air, mingling with his exhaustion, and Izuku fiddles with his hands.

"Do you think you have a good enough handle on it so it won't spiral out of control again?" Yagi asks after he's finished.

Izuku nods. "I think so. I, uh, haven't had them appear yet since then." He adds rather sheepishly, "I tried to see if I could make one materialize when I was in the shower and could focus more, but it didn't work."

"That's good then. I advise you not to try and make them come out until we're in the proper environment to take care of any accidents." His brows furrow. "Have you heard more from him? The fifth user?"

"I haven't seen him, but—but he said he'd explain more later!" Izuku winces, knowing how unreasonable and even unbelievable that sounds, but he's comforted by the fact that Yagi doesn't look the least bit suspicious that he's lying or otherwise hallucinating.

All Might thinks to himself for a few more minutes, and Izuku lets the silence stretch on for an almost uncomfortable amount of time.

Eventually, Yagi sighs. "My boy, I think it may be time to tell Aizawa about One for All, yes? This is... pretty new and unpredictable. And you can get really hurt if things go wrong here, so we need all the help we can get."

"I know," Izuku mutters, staring at the carpeted floor. He knew that's what they'd have to end up doing, but he still isn't a huge fan of the idea.

Yagi gives him a reassuring smile. "I wasn't lying back there when I said you did well. I'm surprised you were able to continue fighting with what happened." He leans forward to catch his gaze. "I am very glad to have you as my successor, Young Midoriya. I don't think I could have asked for a better student."

Izuku blushes at the sudden praise and turns his whole body away, lips trembling. He finds himself aching for the words to be nothing but true.

"You've always looked the happiest when you're out there saving," All Might continues, this time in a more amused voice. "It's incredible!"

"All Might-sensei," Izuku says, wanting to push the attention off of himself.

"Yes?"

"I'd say you're the happiest when you're just like this." Izuku gestures to his form. "When you can finally rest for a little while after fighting, y'know?"

The man frowns. "You think so?"

"Mhm."

Yagi looks at the television, quiet once more, and when he speaks, he whispers. Izuku has to strain to hear even with his enhancements.

"Well, I suppose you're right."

His quirks are mutating.

The thought haunts him all the way into his dreams and into the waking world. He's in the middle of One for All, somewhere in the void between all of the users' realms, and training.

More specifically, he's testing out just how much his quirks have changed. They're not just mutating, no, they're combining. They're becoming stronger.

Since he unlocked Black Whip last night, Pull has become expeditiously more powerful. He can pull an entire ton with just one hand, and that's without looking. That's around an 150% increase—in one fucking night. Actually, in just a few hours!

And it's not just Pull.

Extract feels more sensitive against his nerves, and his radius for detecting quirks and energies has increased as well, standing at a 20-mile span from any direction. Boost and One for All now seem to be one power, as even when Izuku just activates Boost, red sparks fly off of his body like flint being struck against rock.

He can sense all of the individual and even mundane emotions coming from every single person in All Might's skyscraper and beyond, even while asleep.

Deflect no longer ends on either side of him. Instead, it's expanded to wrap around him whenever he wants it to. The density has tripled, and now it ricochets shit right off without Izuku having to will it to do so!

And Tsubasa's quirk... since Izuku couldn't actually grow wings himself, Black Whip must've fused with the newly formed power and created artificial wings by itself. While they're not entirely comparable, and Izuku can still poke his finger right through the dense mist with enough force, it's still terrifying.

Izuku's body is adapting, and he's not sure if he should be scared or relieved. Banjou met him inside here soon after Izuku materialized and explained, rather simply, that he should expect to be receiving a version of everyone else's quirks.

Without much of an explanation or any kind of comforting gesture, Banjou left to be somewhere inside his own realm, leaving Izuku to train with Black Whip and freak the fuck out for hours inside of One for All.

Izuku doesn't mind it. He's more of a visual learner anyway. He doesn't need Banjou to explain everything about Black Whip for him to learn.

"You've been at this for a while," En comments, appearing behind Izuku in a cloud of smoke.

Izuku nods, not looking at the other user. The whips are still swarming around his form, trying to break free from his hold. Izuku's control has gotten better, but he's still ass at it altogether. If he tries this in the real world, he's going to snap his body in half.

Cold sweat trickles down his forehead, and Izuku can't even afford to wipe it off.

"Perhaps it's time for a break," En suggests, gliding around him.

Izuku shakes his head. "Can't. Gotta get better at controlling it."

"You manifested it last night."

"Yeah, and that's plenty of time for me to have mastered it by now."

En moves to touch one of the whips, and Izuku manages to reel it back in just in time.

"Hey!" Izuku shouts.

"Your body is deteriorating," En comments, eyes half-lidded. "Overexertion will do nothing but harm you."

Izuku steps away and wishes bleakly that the man would just leave him the hell alone. "I can't get hurt here."

"You can," a new voice says from above. Izuku bites back an audible sigh when Shimura touches down. She doesn't sound pleased at all. "Take it from me, kid. Dreams can be mentally taxing. You've been spending too much time here lately. You're not even asleep this time, either, which means you're using up triple the energy as normal. When you try to move again in real life, you're going to be exhausted."

"I can deal with that," Izuku assures, trying his hardest to direct the whips to his new objective.

Shimura shifts in front of his vision and crosses her arms. Izuku's eyes linger on her bulging muscles. "Stubbornness doesn't look good on you, brat."

Izuku pauses, his eyes twitching. He might've been ashamed any other time, but right now he only feels annoyed. "I'm not being stubborn, I'm being logical. Everyone here knows I don't have a lot of time left, so I have to put my all into everything right now to make up for it."

"You'll be of no help to us when you're tired and weak," En counters.

Izuku groans in frustration. "If anything this is just a simulation. I'm not actually physically doing anything here. This is just to help me learn how to do it in real time."

Shimura puts an ungloved hand on his head and moves him around like a bobble head, her face pinched. "Where is Banjou at? Shouldn't he be supervising you?"

It's the way she says it that has Izuku's nerves lighting on fire. "I don't need him to babysit me!" He retorts hotly.

Shimura scowls, but En puts his hands in his pockets and speaks before she gets the chance. "Moody today, aren't we?"

"I'm not—"

Shimura moves his head around more until Izuku jerks himself away from her. "I didn't mean it like that, Izuku. He's just supposed to be teaching you and making sure you don't go overboard since it's his quirk you're dealing with."

Izuku knows he's probably being a little unfair, but at the moment he just can't handle their overbearingness. There's just so much going on that he can't do it! "Why did you two follow me? Just to nag me?"

En shrugs, as blunt as always. "Pretty much."

Shimura elbows her master. "Since you don't seem to be in the mood to talk like an adult, we'll go another route: I don't want to see you visiting this realm so much anymore until you've gotten some rest. And I mean it."

"What? Are you— what? " Izuku is so shocked he can barely force out a comprehensible sentence. Shimura doesn't seem to budge, so he turns his accusing stare to En. "But that's crazy! I need to train with Black Whip! It's safer here."

"Your training means nothing when you can't replicate it properly afterwards because of your physical and mental state, as I said," En explains, still sounding so bored.

Jesus. Why are they trying to tell him how to live his life? As if he doesn't know what he's doing? As if they don't know why he has to do everything he does?

"You can't ask me to not come here," he says, skin prickling dangerously.

"We're not," Shimura says, and the words are like a hammer. Izuku steps back, back to feeling small again. He feels his quirks coil tightly inside him, and his fists clench. Honestly he doesn't like whatever she's implying, and he can't lie and say he isn't a little frightened by the vague threat. He... he can't possibly go against them, right? No, no! That's just... weird. And stupid!

They're already dead, for one, so it's not like they can actually be defeated; Izuku would never win. And two, it feels morally wrong! They're the other users of One for All!

Izuku backs away, muscles tense, and then storms off, deciding he's been inside One for All for long enough anyway.

He shudders as he forces himself back to reality, and he immediately heads for his notebook. He needs to put his findings and experiences with Black Whip in there alongside his other quirks. He needs to jot down all of the new knowledge.

He roams the halls, still pissed off about what happened. Today has been an easy day mostly because neither Aizawa nor Yamada is at school right now. They're still on their way back from the mission, which ran extra late, and Yagi is doing more conferences to explain what happened yesterday in more detail.

And since the other teachers are busy filling in the gaps left by the others, no one is there to get on Izuku's back or look for him when he skips his classes.

He knows he shouldn't. In fact, he promised he would try harder to be a good student. But he just doesn't have a choice! Why would he waste his time in a classroom learning shit that won't matter to him in the long run when he could be training? And getting stronger?

Manifesting Black Whip has only proven to him that he needs to diverge all of his time to improve himself!

"You get it, right?" Izuku finds himself asking aloud, his words low and shaky like a smoking gun. It's storming outside, so no light is shining through the floor to ceiling windows.

He has no one else to talk to about this (Kacchan is now at home and probably still reeling over what Izuku told him about his experiences this morning), so the bad voice will have to do.

His scarred hand finds his shoulder, scratching the recently healed puncture marks left there from yesterday.

His other hand clenches and unclenches by his chest. "I mean, you already know about—about everything, right? My situation?" He swallows a lump, his chest heaving. "My mother got hurt because of me a while ago, and I knew I had to be better, to be stronger to help protect her and make up for it—and I tried, I really did, but..."

I understand, Izuku, the voice rumbles.

The boy nods to himself, needing that reassurance. Craving it. But he continues to ramble just to fill the silence and quiet his own insecurities. "But it ended up not being enough, and I couldn't even save my brother. And—and after that, I decided I needed to become something greater." His hand moves from his shoulder to his neck. "I started doing the right thing, finally. I was saving lives, fighting crime, and started becoming a—a relentless force for good. I even made up with Kacchan, and we were going somewhere!"

Thunder rumbles in the distance, and rain splashes against the windows. Izuku sees the vent hatch denoting his usual entrance but hesitates in going up. He instead looks outside, feeling the crackle of electricity making a home on his arm hairs.

"I thought that if I could just do enough, it would be enough. That it would change my life. Change me." His nails dig into his palms. He needs to stop talking, but he can't. The rush of adrenaline and pain from yesterday coupled with the training from today—it's doping him up. "But that wasn't the thing that did."

Eraserhead , the voice says, and Izuku's breath leaves in a fell swoop.

"Yeah. I—I met him. For real, not just while running from him. And then All Might came along too, and I thought... this was it. When I'm with them, everything is okay. I thought then that I had a fighting chance."

He hoists himself up into the vents, and his mild freak out only worsens from there. He can't stop the flood of private words from escaping him, even as they're betraying his very being.

"But then I screwed that up, too. I got distracted. Almost lost Missy. I let Stain kill more people. The—the Nomu returned. Native happened. And now Hawks won't leave me the fuck alone, and—and the Commission..." He seethes inwardly. "On and on and on. One step forward, two steps back. All the time. Every single day. I never win."

You will. There's a whisper of breath next to his ear. Don't let them get in your way anymore.

Izuku crawls through the familiar spaces, his voice so low that it's not even echoing. "I know, I know. I'm just... I'm not sure how much longer I can take it. That's why I'm doing this. That's why I have to be like this. But how do I make them see it? They know what I've been through. They can watch it all. So how are they still not under—?"

His voice dies in his throat. He stares at the empty compartment in his secret stash after prying open the invisible lid, not processing what he's seeing.

Izuku.

Where... is his notebook?

Show them.

It's supposed to be right here. He's sure of it.

Izuku hid it in this compartment he himself manufactured a while ago. He made sure it was well away from any of the sensors in the vents, and he also ensured it was out of sight of even the most prying eyes. He even used special technology so that depth-perception machines or infrared lights wouldn't capture it! No one would know it was there unless he told them himself.

But now the box is empty. And Izuku is left to wonder if he actually left it somewhere else and is losing his mind.

That can't be right, though. Izuku wouldn't put it anywhere else. There's literally nowhere else he would trust to put it. No one should have been able to find it, as no one really goes in the vents—especially not this far in! It's a very small space. The compartment is even smaller. Only a tiny hand could fit through to grab it—even Izuku's hand is too big. He always used Pull to yank it out after shoving it back in. Who else could have...

There's a moment of clarity that takes an eternity for Izuku to believe is real.

The only real explanation for this is that Midoriya Izuku is an idiot who wants so badly for people to turn out better than they are.

Of course, there is only one logical suspect.

A tiny, furry body can easily scuttle through these parts of the vents. A small hand could so easily be a small paw. And any mammal with a nose would be able to smell Izuku's scent on the notebook and be able to locate it.

Izuku's been holding that notebook a lot these past days as a keepsake and as a comfort, so of course it would smell like him.

And plus, there's only one being who would dare take his shit like that.

Izuku is out of the vents in mere seconds, skin feeling weirdly cold. His quirks swirl and buzz right inside his flesh, begging and screaming to be let out. He walks—no, stalks through the halls, trying to rationalize this. Trying to think past the rapidly growing fury in his stomach.

Surely he's wrong. Surely there is a good explanation for this.

Surely Izuku is overreacting.

The boy thinks of all those chess games, of all the wise words the mammal would impart on him in times of silent turmoil. He remembers the niceties, the tea, the encouragement, the care.

And worst of all, the trust.

At least Izuku could always count on Principal Nezu to be the unbiased one in any argument. He never favored Izuku or hated him, really. He took an interest in Izuku's backstory and power, and Izuku knew that. He only never minded it much because he never made Izuku feel the way that the old doctor did.

Nezu was just there, and he was scary at times, sure, But Izuku liked it that way.

But now? Now Izuku can see all the pieces forming. Now all of his games make sense. All of the side glances Nezu gave him, all of the small gestures—they all were pointing to one thing. But Izuku didn't want to admit it.

At least, he didn't think it would happen so soon. He thought he had some time left before it would occur.

Those beady eyes and clasped paws and flicking tail were never meant to be trusted.

"Ya know," Izuku drawls one morning, sprawled across his new laboratory desk, "I feel like you really get me, sir."

Principal Nezu continues typing away on his computer in the main office. Izuku can't see him, but his quirk is there all the same, and his voice is as soft as always. "I'm pleased you think so. You and I, we must stick together, Midoriya."

Izuku gives a halfhearted salute and picks up his newest set of schematics. As long as he can hang here forever, he doesn't much care what Nezu does.

He appreciates this freedom more than anything.

The boy bites the inside of his cheeks so hard he can feel the soft skin tearing. He makes it to his office in record time, now teetering on the edge of a precipice. The door slides open before he can even put his hand on the sensor, not that he would've bothered with that. He was planning on kicking it in.

Nezu was expecting him, evidently. Hell, he was probably watching him the entire time. This thought makes Izuku feel even better in his advances.

"Ah, Midoriya! Right on time," Principal Nezu says from his large chair. "Please, have a seat. We have much to—"

Izuku is in front of the desk before he can finish. "Where is it?" He demands.

Nezu isn't looking at him. He's talking to him, gesticulating with polished claws, but not looking. Why isn't he looking? He's organizing folders with the back of his chair facing Izuku, and every few words or so he'll glance out the dark windows, his tail swishing and chair rolling.

And. He's. Not. Looking.

"I haven't any idea what you're talking about. Now, if you don't mind, we should discuss our next—"

"Don't bullshit me!" Izuku shouts, hands coming down hard against the mahogany wood of Nezu's desk. Cracks form like spider webs. "Where is it! Where did you take it!"

Nezu continues to move around behind his desk. He's scooting in his chair, paws busy. He even grabs a cup of steaming tea from his side table and takes a quick sip.

The blatant ignorance makes Izuku wonder suddenly if he's even here right now. What is so fucking important that Nezu can't even pay him any attention? What paperwork does he have to file that his own AI can't do for him?

"Please lower your volume, Mr. Midoriya. You and I both know it's quite rude to yell inside. As I was saying..."

And the mammal continues talking. He continues doing his thing as if Izuku's world isn't currently splitting apart at the seams. He continues as if Izuku is the one who's being dramatic and petty.

It quickly becomes too much: the whistling in Izuku's ear, the chilliness pressing against his skin, the principal's tinny words, the weight of what this could mean for Izuku.

The sudden, heavy anger in the air doesn't belong to Nezu. It doesn't belong to anyone else.

It's all Izuku's.

He feels the irritation rise and rise in a crescendo as the scents and sounds and thoughts hit him all at once.

Why is Nezu acting like this? Why doesn't he seem to care about Izuku's plans? His intentions? He must know Izuku has reasons, so why can't he just leave Izuku alone? Why can't he just fucking stop.

"Look at me!" Like a rubber band, Izuku snaps. The demand is ferocious. The force of the words damn near rattles the earth.

Principal Nezu finally, finally pauses, and he looks at him. "Oh," is all he says, a puff of air.

It's so condescending that Izuku doesn't need anything else to push him into the roaring waters. He's already been drowning for hours. He clears the large desk in one go, and in half a second he's towering over the pro hero, his fingers itching and hands aching to touch, to hurt, to wrap around something and feel a declining pulse.

But Nezu isn't afraid. His eyes are wide, not out of fear but of jubilation. It's like he's excited at this event finally playing out.

He still has that cup of tea in his hand, and his white tail is swishing even faster. He's in observation mode now.

Izuku slaps the tea cup, sending it shattering against the wall. He kicks Nezu's chair back, and the mammal spins away unharmed. When he slows to a stop, he has his elbow on the armchair and his paw propping up his chin, his eyes narrowed. Everything about his expression screams amusement as he smiles and watches Izuku tear apart his neat office.

The drawers of the desk come out first. And then Izuku is ripping out all of the files in Nezu's cabinet, throwing all of the papers behind him. He goes for the bookshelves then, using a mixture of all his quirks to get every single damned book out so he can search properly.

Every 'hidden' compartment Izuku sees, he opens. He tears off the couch cushions and rips up the carpets, barely breathing the more desperate he becomes. The side rooms are his next victims. He takes hold of the control panel and quickly rifles through each area, shaking so badly that he can barely hold onto anything correctly.

And when Izuku stands in the middle of the ruined office, panting, his chest heaving with unadulterated fear, he hears him.

"Midoriya," Nezu begins, sounding as if he's mentioning the weather outside. "That beautiful quirk you used to hold up that crane last night. Did you take that one from someone as well?"

The world narrows down to just Izuku and his principal. He can't tell anymore where his body ends and the universe begins. He is so strangely aware of everything around him right now that there is no possible way he is anything but everything in this room.

Izuku's throat is dry. He doesn't speak, but then he registers the 'as well' part and his body jerks.

"What?" he tries to say, but the word is barely finished.

"Well, like how you took your mother's," Nezu explains, as if making it easier for him.

Izuku turns, oh so slowly, and stares. Nezu doesn't break away from his gaze. And right here, right now, there are no arguments going on inside of Izuku's head. There are no vestiges giving him advice or commenting on his actions or pleading with him to see reason.

The only voice Izuku hears now belongs to himself. And that's just as scary.

"Mommy, get up, get up! Mommy! I have it! I have it!"

"What, baby?" She mumbles, voice thick with sleep and confusion.

"I have it! It came in!" Izuku squeals in excitement. "I've got it!"

She jumps up then, eyes fixed in horror. "What? What happened!" She's off the bed in seconds, kneeling down to grip his small shoulders with worry. "Are you alright? Izuku, baby—!"

He giggles. "I feel 'em! All the powers! I can feel you! And—and Mahono above us! Oh, and the family way, way below! Takeo is there! I s-sense him. Their quirks are so cool, mommy! I can—"

"Slow down, Izuku. Are you sure your quirk came in? Are you not just—"

"No, no, no! I'm sure! I'm really, really sure!" He bounces up and down on his toes, gleeful. "I know it!"

She doesn't say anything for a long moment, but she must come to some conclusion, as eventually she smiles and says with great relief, "Oh, happy birthday, 'zuku."

Truthfully, they had no way of knowing what would happen next. But that doesn't change the fact that he did it. It doesn't change the way he hurt Midoriya Inko beyond repair.

She schedules an appointment for a quirk analysis and registration for the next day, but on his birthday they celebrate quietly and humbly. It's the best thing ever, getting your quirk on the day of your fourth birthday. Izuku couldn't be happier. He is so excited that he's vibrating slightly. He's never felt quite like this before. When he woke up, he was itchy all over. His palms were tingling, and he knew right then, even before he made sense of all the extra things he could feel, that it had happened.

His excitement only built as the day went on and he practiced with extending his senses as far as he could.

And that night, when his mother brings out the gift she saved up to buy him—a brand new special edition All Might plushie that's about the same size as him—everything changes.

He screams in delight and jumps off his chair to hug her, delight etched in every freckle on his face. He just loves her so much, and he's so, so happy and so energetic that he doesn't know what to do to stop himself from becoming overwhelmed. So, when his mother pulls him up to sit on her lap for a hug, and his palms touch her skin, both of their worlds burn.

And all the while, a tiny version of All Might watches.

Izuku swallows back the unwanted memories. They were shoved so far back in his mind that he thought, naively, he would never have to relive them again. "It was an accident," he finds himself saying aloud, but it's small and childish.

"Of course it was," Nezu soothes.

A familiar voice suddenly sounds from some ways behind the office door, and Izuku shrinks in on himself even more when he recognizes Aizawa's quirk signature.

The man must finally be back from his mission. Does he know what's happening here? No. He wouldn't be walking so casually if so.

The door attempts to slide open to give Aizawa access, but Izuku quickly kicks the entirety of the mahogany desk across the room. It lands with such speed and force that it wedges itself snugly in the doorway, stopping anyone from entering.

Izuku's senses are dialed up to the max. There's a freight train in his ear, and the world is closing in on him. He's dizzy, and though he's trying to breathe he finds that air just won't come to him. Like a cornered animal, Izuku lashes out and continues to tear up everything he gets his eyes on.

It has to be here somewhere. It has to be! Where would Nezu put it? This isn't fair. This isn't fucking fair.

The desk groans as it's pushed, and there's alarmed shouting coming from the other side. Izuku can't make sense of any of it, because Nezu is still there in the middle of it with that same small smile.

And Izuku's anger boils over like a pot kept on the stove for too long.

He kicks the coffee table and the couch against the doorway next, buying himself more time. He stalks up to the principal and grabs his tie. "Where did you put it?" He asks once more. He repeats it, again and again, and his grip gets tighter and tighter as Nezu refuses to respond. He never responds. He never looks, and he never speaks.

The fire grows brighter and more furious inside Izuku, making the boy shake and his vision sway.

All Izuku sees are those cold eyes and that knowing, triumphant expression. It's a look that Father was always abundant with.

His patience nonexistent, Izuku lifts Nezu right up off the chair, his blinding panic carving the way for a ferocious need to fix this, to contain the situation, to maintain control. But Izuku has no control to begin with, and he's far too late to keep things from spiraling, so he figures he should find out the consequences of his actions right now.

"Who are you gonna tell?" He asks, and it's more of a threat. He's holding the principal up so close to him that he can smell the vanilla scented lotion on his sleek fur.

Nezu's eyes are beady, and the euphoria on his face remains clear despite his predicament. "My young student, I wouldn't dream of telling any less than everyone."

Izuku's breath shudders, though he already knew that would be the answer. "You'll ruin everything." His voice wobbles dangerously. "You'll ruin me."

The mammal only tips his head at the vulnerable admission, now condescendingly confused. "In the large scope of things, does that matter? You were never destined to have a choice in this part, were you? You could not live a good life if you tried."

Izuku drops him back in his chair, unable to help it when his world tips. He's on his knees then, fisting his pants as he tries to blink away the spots in his vision. He touches his throat, coughing up spots of blood.

His heart stutters.

The principal's paw reaches forward carefully and rests on the scar on Izuku's jaw; the touch would be almost loving coming from anyone else. Izuku is too numb to bat it away or stop it—he lets it happen like how a sickly tree eventually succumbs to a typhoon's great force.

Nezu inspects Izuku for a moment more, his gaze running along every square inch of the boy's face and lingering on his cuts. Izuku feels something hard coil in his gut then, and the storm outside grows louder and louder until it's all consuming. Until he can feel the vibrations in his teeth.

Does Nezu feel it too?

"Sir," Izuku begins, and it's barely more than a cracked whisper, "do you know what I've been wondering?"

He waits for Nezu's imploring nod, just as he's done for their entire time working together, and lifts his head. He maintains eye contact despite the way his face burns and burns and burns.

His voice is the quietest it's ever been. "If I ripped that quirk from you, would it reduce you back to that dumb fucking rodent you were before?"

Nezu's ears flatten, and he doesn't say a word.

Izuku thinks then that silence has never felt so rewarding.