Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

HeroCon, 22XX: the ten-year anniversary of the end of the war that ravaged Japan. Being that HeroCon was one of the few hero convention groups that survived the extended conflict, in part due to the direct intervention of UA's Class A to stop a bombing of the convention center one year, the anniversary convention was even bigger than any before it, and - that's right - everyone left from Class A was invited.

They had expanded the convention center by two city blocks in every direction, to accommodate even more events: panels, product demos, live entertainment, and three different tournaments (two for games, one for martial arts). It had been the talk of the country for months.

And Izuku, aka Hero Deku, was excited beyond belief to have an exclusive invitation to one small party being held for their class.

"This is so cool," he gasped, hands over his costume's faceplate. "It's like a movie theatre - there's only a few quirk users with display powers, who do you think it'll be?"

Todoroki, beside him, scanned the event ticket, to no avail. Special Event: Through The Looking-Glass was all it said. "It appears to be a surprise."

They found the best spots in the theater seating - the middle, for Izuku, after years of hearing about acoustics design from Jirou, and the back row, for Todoroki, who preferred not to have anyone seated behind him - and waited for the rest of their class to arrive. Iida, Yaoyorozu, Tokoyami and Uraraka had been panelists on the very last discussion panel for the day, 'Tree and Trunk: Legacy and Solo Heroes'; Shinsou was reportedly still being swarmed for autographs by his underground fanclub, despite having explicitly vetoed a meet-and-greet event. Bakugou was on patrol for another ten minutes, naturally, 'picking up you idiots' slack' in his words (referring to Kirishima, Ashido, and Kaminari, who had skived off the last half-hour of their patrols to make their way over early).

The invitees included more than just Class A - their teachers, too, were arriving for the show. "Problem Child," a bemused Aizawa greeted Izuku, taking a corner seat with the bright and bubbly Eri (who'd attended HeroCon for free as a qualified medical first-responder, and was absolutely covered in new merch). His husband, Present Mic, trailed after them, weighted down with shopping bags.

Izuku wasn't the only one who got to his feet when All Might entered the room, but he was the one who'd saved him one of the best seats in the theater. "You made it!" he beamed at his mentor and predecessor, then leaned in to whisper. "What's this event about, do you know? The tickets only have a name."

Yagi was on the convention's organizing board, after all. They'd surely tell him what this was about.

"Ah, it's a secret, my boy," Yagi grinned, sipping a smoothie from the food court. "Even if I told you I'd attended one of these events before-" Izuku gasped, sending him puppy-dog eyes in hopes of getting details- "it's different every time anyway. They'll explain how it works when everyone is here.”

Fortunately, they didn't have to wait too much longer. The event had been listed as starting at six p.m., and it was 5:55 when the last person sat down. (Jirou. It was Jirou. Izuku had spitefully traded the seat he'd been reserving for her to Bakugou instead.) At last, the lights in the room dimmed, save for a single red spotlight that beamed down to the platform at the front, highlighting a plain-looking person with a shiny metal mask over their face.

"Hello everyone, and welcome," they said, with a bow and a flourish of their cape, "to this rare performance. I am your host, Looking-Glass. With my quirk, of the same name, I can project a view into another world - a past, present, or future that has never happened, but has some commonalities with our own."

Izuku may or may not be vibrating in his seat with enthusiasm at the unusual quirk explanation.

Looking-Glass paced back and forth across the stage. "My quirk will shortly choose someone at random to be the 'keystone' of the projection - the main character of the story. Have no fear, however; everyone present will appear in some capacity." The red spotlight began to move around the room, lighting on each person in the audience in turn, never lingering on anyone in particular. Izuku felt a jolt down his spine when it was his turn, but would only notice it in hindsight, when the show had already begun.

"Remember," Looking-Glass urged them, their projected voice beginning to quiet as they stepped into the shadows, "This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Whatever you see through the looking-glass is its own world, and only the fewest grains of sand are true."

The lights went out; and a title lit up in red font, across the screen.

Wunderterror.

Ch.1: Unknown Number.

"Oh hey, that's the UA cafeteria!" Kaminari blurted out as the scene opened. "WHOA, we're all tiny!"

"Shhh," Iida urged him.

"Deku?" That was Uraraka, looking at him curiously. "You've been on your phone a lot, is everything all right?"

"H-huh? I'm just - following the news," Izuku stammered, holding up his phone to show the Musutafu Times frontpage. "The Tartarus breakout and all."

"The what-"

"But that didn't happen until way later, didn't it-?"

It was partly true, at least. All For One had escaped the prison less than 24 hours ago, freeing most of the other prisoners in the process - some without their quirks. But his browser wasn't the only thing he had open.

[Unknown Number: +81-45-477-4111

???, 06:10: Izu.]

He'd gotten the text at dawn, just when he woke up. If the number wasn't enough of an indication, the nickname was.

Izuku had met All For One before, you see.

People gasped. Izuku was among them. Beside him, Yagi tensed up, gripping the armrests of his chair with alarming force.

[Izuku, 06:13: ..Yes?]

It hadn't been the best time in his life, back then.

[???, 06:18: I'm calling on a past favor. You know the one.]

"What in the world..." Aizawa muttered under his breath.

Midoriya Hisashi had not taken well to having a son even before he believed Izuku to be quirkless. Fire-breathing quirk aside, there was no household in Musutafu that went through as much burn cream as the Midoriyas' apartment. Never enough to warrant a hospital visit, after the time three-year-old Izuku supposedly stuck his arm in the stove, but he'd grown used to stinging scars on his arms and back long before Kacchan got control over his quirk.

Bakugou flinched at the reminder of what his asshole kid self had once done, but was focusing (like everyone else) on the fact that in some other world there'd been an abusive asshole who'd burn a three-year-old, not to mention that it was Izuku they were talking about. "Holy shit."

Doctor Tsubasa had said it was unlikely that Izuku would be a late-bloomer, but possible; he had the second toe joint, but blood tests at Hisashi's behest had suggested a 'latent' quirk, one with no obvious co-mutations. When Izuku passed his sixth birthday without showing his mysterious ability, Hisashi had decided it needed to be encouraged to manifest.

Long story short: it didn't work.

[Izuku, 06:20: wh

  What* do you need?]

"But latent quirks were only ever a fringe theory," Izuku muttered, "there was never enough data to suggest they were real - although if that Tsubasa is the same Dr. Garaki as in our world then maybe his human experimentation..."

Hisashi grew bored of him eventually, and in some ways that was just as bad. He 'forgot' to leave leftovers for Izuku in the fridge, so they'd go bad on the counter overnight. He 'didn't notice' when groceries ran out. He would get 'urgent' calls from his office and disappear for days on end, while Mom was busy with her own job, and Izuku would wake up to a cold and silent house, alone.

"That's terrible," Uraraka cried, slamming her fist onto the armrest. "That poor child-"

After the first time, he’d learned to expect it; and by the third time, he came to appreciate the periods of isolation, even when they meant subsisting on tap water and what scraps of food might or might not remain in the house. He learned to spend as much time as possible in the computer lab of the public library, outside school hours - it, like many public buildings, was open 24-7, more to accommodate heroes on the day shift than people with nocturnal Quirks, but civilians were allowed in all the same.

Ten-year-old Izuku ignored hunger pangs and sleep deprivation headaches to plumb the depths of the internet - from hero forums to conspiracy boards, conspiracy boards to their darknet sub-boards - some of which were far easier to find than one might expect.

"Clever," Aizawa murmured, in the tone he used when he was analyzing a particularly difficult case.

(Nobody offline had noticed Izuku was smart; but in hindsight, it was no wonder ‘Akatani Mikumo, alias Yamikumo’ had been treated like a college student by other board regulars.)

Yagi noticed Young Midoriya twitch at the fake name. It seemed vaguely familiar to him, too, a tiny detail plucking at Yagi's senses; something from years ago, maybe.

Izuku found he adored the conspiracy boards. Between the lines of obviously-fake ‘popular conspiracies’, in the shadows of urban legends, threaded into true-crime mysteries, there lay grains of truth and danger, patterns unseen, connections undrawn - at least on the mainstream internet. Yamikumo only ever asked idle questions on those boards; safe questions. Safe knowledge.

The unsafe knowledge went to the darknet, where it belonged. And the really unsafe things, the truth and danger that Izuku hoarded for a purpose - those were either in his analysis notebooks, or never written down at all. Either way, no one would ever see them.

Then he turned eleven, and found the last piece of the puzzle that he was looking for. He was eleven-and-a-day when he stepped into a darkened alleyway for a meeting. Eleven-and-a-week when he knocked on the door of an abandoned warehouse, for another.

Eleven-and-ten-days when his objective, at last, was fulfilled.

List of unsolved disappearances since 20XX, by country:
This list is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

…

Japan

...

Midoriya, Hisashi | Fire Breath | Musutafu | 22XX

...

(Izuku had hovered over the 'suggest an edit' button for hours, but ultimately closed the tab and cleared his browser.

It wasn’t an unsolved disappearance - but he was the only one who needed to know where Hisashi had gone.)

"Oh," Iida said softly.

Several people cheered. "You go, kid!" Ashido fist-pumped.

"An inspired approach to revenge," Todoroki informed Izuku. "I respect this alternate-you's decision."

Sato passed Todoroki a small cookie to forestall further commentary.

[Unknown Number: +81-45-477-4111

???, 06:24: At lunchtime, you'll get a phone call from your mother. Play along.]

That had been the last message in the morning, and now it was almost noon. Izuku headed to the cafeteria with his friends, eyes still on his phone. Waiting.

And sure enough, just as he was relaxing enough to take a bite of Lunch Rush's katsudon-

[Call from: Mom]

[Accept / Decline]

“Sorry guys my mom is calling I’ll see you later-!” Izuku fled the cafeteria, hitting ‘accept’ the moment he was somewhere relatively quiet. “Hi mom?”

“Izuku, you won’t believe who’s come to visit!”

Mom was right. He didn't believe it. Midoriya Hisashi had been dead for years.

So then, who-

Play along.

...Oh.

More gasps. "Oh no!"

"No way-"

"Are they saying that it's-"

"Holy shit, Mido, you're even more of a chaos magnet in that world than in this one!"

Yagi looked at his student: Izuku had visibly paled, leaning forward in his seat like he was being physically drawn in. "Young Midoriya," he whispered, laying a hand on Izuku's shoulder, "are you all right?"

Wide eyes turned to him. Izuku swallowed, nervous. "It's just," he croaked, "a little frightening."

"Relax, my boy, it's just a story," he assured him.

Izuku gave him a shaky nod, and turned back to watch the screen.

Chapter Text

Midoriya Hisashi had been dead for years.

So then, who-

Play along.

...Oh.

 

“Th-that’s great, Mom,” Izuku managed after a second. “Sorry, it’s a little loud by the cafeteria so I didn’t hear you clearly let me find a quieter spot-” One where the security cameras wouldn’t pick up all the expressions his face was running through while he forced down what felt like a panic attack in favor of feigning enthusiasm.

Fifteen minutes later, his friends all looked up at Izuku’s return to the cafeteria; some took more notice than others of the shaky smile on his face and the vigor with which he scarfed down his cold katsudon. “M-my dad’s back from overseas,” Izuku lied at last to his curious tablemates. “He’s, uh, he’s a little bit… intense?”

"Oh yeah, your dad actually is overseas, isn't he?" Uraraka remembered. "I wonder if we'll get a flashback to him?"

Shouto sent him a look.

“Not that bad!” Izuku exclaimed. “It’s just been a long time since I saw him-” a handful of years and several meters of dirt separated Izuku from Midoriya Hisashi “-and I’m kind of nervous to meet again?”

As he ought to be, since the Midoriya Hisashi picking him up from UA for a ‘family bonding weekend’ was All For One.

...and it was Friday afternoon, so that was three hours from now.

Oh god.

"So he breaks out of prison and then immediately goes to bother Midoriya," Ashido snickered. "Somehow I'm not even surprised, like, poor alternate-you!"

"Poor alternate-me," Izuku agreed, wincing.

“He’s coming to campus to pick me up after classes let out,” Izuku said aloud, for the benefit of those not tuned into his internal screaming.

“Ooh! So we all get to meet him!” Uraraka beamed.

“Don’t be fooled so easily,” Shouto deadpanned, “this is just the latest scheme to obfuscate All Might’s fatherhood.”

Most of the audience, including the teachers, laughed. Todoroki’s antics were the same in all universes.

Izuku snorted. “You know that isn’t true,” he teased weakly, “we’ve talked about this, Shouto.”

“You’ve never talked about your real dad, though,” Uraraka pointed out. “So what’s his Quirk like? Is it similar to Superpower?”

“Well…”

"A hundred yen it's fire-breathing," Bakugou announced.

Shouto's jaw dropped. "Midoriya," he started, eyes sparkling, "are you by any chance Endeavor's secret nephew-"

Sato put another cookie in his mouth.

Fire Breath was a straightforward elemental Emitter-type quirk typical to third- and fourth-generation users: using a passively-produced accelerant stored in glands in the mouth and throat for fuel, the user could produce a quantity of flame from their mouth at will. Izuku’s observations suggested the flames’ size and temperature could be controlled to a limited extent, and that the user could direct the outburst with their tongue.

“The quirk also incorporates a full-body resistance to fire and heat damage,” Izuku went on, encouraged by the attention of his audience, the middleman he’d reached out to on the darknet. “With several patches on knees and elbows roughly equivalent to finely armored scales, but that may be an aesthetic mutation - I’ve never met anyone from that side of the family.

"Good to see Mido's muttering is the same in every universe," Kirishima chuckled.

“And while he doesn’t seem to know it,” he added, “the accelerant can also be spit out without igniting it, kind of like a cobra-” Izuku didn’t know how far, because Hisashi had only ever done that while he was drunk and angry- “and evaporates quickly, which along with the smell indicates its composition is most likely an alcohol.” Which, if it were an alcohol, would also imply a high tolerance for the stuff, and tracked with how much Hisashi spent on liquor when he went out to get wasted. “Ah, b-but I’m sure this is all redundant, to, um, Sensei-sama-”

From his left, there came a sudden crackling of static - Izuku turned and saw that one of the TV screens in the abandoned meeting room had lit up. “And why,” inquired a low, distorted voice, “is that?”

A hush fell over the room at the sound of that man's voice. All For One was gone, now, but no one forgot Kamino, whether they'd been there or not.

“W-well,” Izuku swallowed, and quickly composed the thoughts that had swirled around his head for months, “he’s said to be able to give and take quirks, but anyone who’s ever made a deal claims to have met him in person, which means there’s unlikely to be an external storage mechanism, and so quirks must be passing through his own body. The rumors say he’s lived since the dawn of quirks, if not longer, and quirks back then were notoriously all-or-nothing, so both his and those he collected would have been highly volatile and powerful; but he’s still alive, so then there must be ways to nullify conflicting mutations, or else to selectively express them, because mutant quirks are an arbitrary category in the first place so there’s no reason they wouldn’t also be subject to his quirk, or else nothing about Fire Breath would interest Sensei-sama at all - ah, not to presume what he likes!”

The middleman was staring at him with wide eyes. Izuku caught his breath, realized he’d been talking a mile a minute, and went red. “I-I’m sorry for rambling!” he bowed anxiously. “It’s harder to organize my thoughts when I don’t write them down, but it seemed irresponsible to leave any records-”

“You need not apologize, young one,” said the screen. “It has been many years since I had occasion to hear an analysis of my own Quirk; the novelty is rather refreshing.”

"He even talks like a movie villain," Jirou observed, through a mouthful of popcorn. "Oh, that's terrifying. I was lucky not to meet him in person, wasn't I?"

Izuku blinked as the implication registered. “S-Sensei-sama! Oh! Um- thank you? It’s nice to meet you!”

“The pleasure is mine, Akatani Mikumo. But ‘Sensei’ is the name I give to strangers. As we will be doing business together soon, I instead invite you to call me All For One.”

"Huh," Bakugou snorted. "Hands-fucker had to call him Sensei, though. And so did all his minions and stuff."

"Ah, but his business name in the underworld wasn’t Sensei until the era of the League," All Might contributed, thinking aloud. "He operated under the name All For One for nearly his entire career; Nighteye and I spent decades trying to track him down to no avail even then, when he moved openly - he was just that good at what he did. So this is consistent with the rumor mill from that bygone age."

The scene changed again, back to UA's campus, and Izuku reached for his water bottle, relieved at the new setting.

By the time the last class ended for the day, and he’d organized his backpack for the weekend, Izuku had managed to will away the nervous knot in his stomach - employing the same sort of compartmentalization that he’d used for other terrible things he needed to hide from people over the years. His friends were more or less fooled by the sunny smiles and false confidence Izuku emitted after lunch, with Shouto the only exception - but there was nothing Izuku wanted to say to him about the current situation, particularly not before he got to see the situation at home for himself.

All Might had been out all day for a string of meetings with the Tartarus task force and its cooperating hero agencies; ironic, considering their person of interest was on his way to UA at this very moment. But it was a blessing on Izuku’s sanity, for sure - he still hadn’t decided what he would do if his mentor and ‘Hisashi’ met face to face, though that would likely happen sooner rather than later, his luck being what it was.

For now, though, it was Principal Nedzu and Aizawa-sensei who waited with Izuku at the school gates for his ‘dad’ to arrive. They were both sneaking regular glances in his direction - hopefully, he looked like he was vibrating with excitement rather than nervous anticipation - but neither staff member voiced any concerns aloud. Izuku checked his phone, where another message from All For One (now added to his contacts as ‘Dad’, because Izuku was nothing if not diligent when it came to hiding dark truths) had arrived a few minutes ago:

[Dad: +81-45-477-4111]

[15:20: ETA 10 min.]

"Can you imagine if All Might was there for this?" Kaminari snorted. "Kamino shitshow part two: electric boogaloo."

Iida raised his hand to interrupt. (Surely he realized no one could see it?) "This implies a place in the timeline after the Kamino Incident, but before the events leading to the actual Tartarus escape, I believe."

It was just about 15:30 now, he saw; and sure enough, just as the clock ticked over, a car pulled up on the street by the gates. Izuku recognized the make and model from a recent lesson on civilian protection details - one of the American brands of quirk-resistant armored cars, popular with CEOs, diplomats, and government officials. From the way both Nedzu and Aizawa stiffened, that detail hadn’t escaped them either. Aizawa turned to Izuku, opening his mouth like he meant to ask him something - What did you say your father does for a living, Izuku? - Oh, I didn’t say anything, sensei. - but before he could start that conversation, the driver’s-side door opened, and a man in a dark suit stepped out, pocketing the keys as he approached.

Yagi gasped, and as-swiftly, stifled it.

...Huh. All For One looked… more like Izuku than Hisashi ever had. Had he availed himself of a disguise quirk that used Izuku as the base? Was he fully healed underneath, or was the damage Izuku had seen on previous occasions still there, just hidden away? He didn’t have any medical equipment on him that Izuku could see, though, and he’d driven a car just fine, so more than likely the restoration was genuine-

Izuku clamped down hard on the urge to mutter - that would not happen within earshot of two pro heroes and the constantly-recording UA security system - and refocused his attention on his supposed dad, who’d reached the gates in about five confident strides. (Izuku envied his genetics.) When they were only a few feet apart, he smiled up at him. “Hi!”

‘Hisashi’ smiled back, somehow looking like the late Midoriya Hisashi and the Kamino supervillain all at once. “Izu,” he said brightly, “you’ve grown.”

“Tends to happen,” Izuku quipped, and Aizawa stifled a surprised snort at the sass. He shuffled his backpack straps on his shoulders, embarrassed. “Um. It’s good to see you again, Dad. Mom was really happy on the phone when she called.”

"He actually called him dad," Sero squeaked. "If it weren't so weird I would call it cute!"

Kaminari wheezed. "Guys - you know how we have 'Dad Might'? And 'Dadzawa'? - Dad For One!"

"Oh, no," Jirou muttered.

“She’s not alone in that,” All For One agreed. He turned to Aizawa and Nedzu. “Do I need to fill out any paperwork before we leave? I don’t mean to rush, but I have groceries in the car…”

“You’re all set!” Principal Nedzu chirruped. “Our security system has already added you to the database.”

“Given recent circumstances, however,” Aizawa cut in, sending the principal an exasperated look, “I would appreciate if you left a secondary contact number besides the household phone, so it can be routed appropriately if you call the school for an emergency. There is a possibility that one or more of the villains broken out of Tartarus will look for Midoriya, given his involvement in their arrests.”

“Of course.” And the villain rattled off a different number than the one in Izuku’s contacts; good thing, because as Izuku was realizing while looking at it on his phone, his personal number was about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face. 477-4111. Seriously.

"OH! I GET IT!" Kaminari blurted out again. Jirou smacked him lightly with an earphone. "Sorry!" He squeaked.

"I'm surprised we even let you leave campus," Aizawa contributed from the back row. "The Nedzu of that world sure is carefree."

It was only as they were leaving, Izuku closing the passenger-side door behind him, that he realized he might have downplayed his reaction too much; if it were his mom visiting, he’d have hugged her, but could he really have been expected to hug All For One?

Izuku choked on his water and started coughing.

He glanced over at the supervillain in question, who was humming a tune and tapping on the steering wheel while he drove. (Was that- the All Might theme song?) In doing so, he became aware of the presence of several grocery bags in the back seat. “Oh, so that wasn’t just an excuse to hurry things up?” Izuku muttered aloud.

All For One chuckled. “The best lies are always based in truth.”

Oh, Izuku knew that all too well.

"This is clearly foreshadowing," Tokoyami decided, as the scene faded out again. "For what, however, I cannot guess with any certainty."

"I'm pretty sure they're referring to the murder cover-up," Todoroki pointed out.

"Yeah, but we already know about the murder cover-up," Hagakure whined. "So it's gotta be something even juicier, right?"

Right?

3. Deception.

The first thing Izuku did as the car pulled away from UA's gates was smile nervously at All For One. Or rather, the first thing he did was stuff his phone and his wallet in the glovebox, which closed with a satisfying metal 'thunk' - it wasn't nearly thick enough to block the tracking chips in everything, but it would be more than enough to muffle the sounds of their conversation if his phone got tapped.

(He'd considered disabling all the tracking devices properly, but discarded the idea almost immediately: UA's security system would ping if he went dark, which would raise unnecessary suspicion.)

That settled, the third thing Izuku did was relax back into the passenger seat. They had at least a twenty-minute drive ahead of them - it was more than enough time for him to ask all the questions brimming in his head. For at least a few minutes, he could lapse into companionable silence, over the sounds of the road and the faint, familiar strains of classical music All For One had playing on the stereo.

Izuku's eyes blinked open. "Is this Holst's 'The Planets' suite?"

The supervillain hummed an affirmative. "Yes, the first piece. You have a good ear." He seemed almost impressed.

"Somehow I'm not surprised he likes centuries-old classical music," drawled Jirou. "Such a stereotype." A few people giggled.

(Izuku's situation after Hisashi left had improved in some ways, but not others: the food money Inko left for him was no longer being funnelled into the local bars, but he still had more free time than he knew what to do with. Music lessons at the local library had filled some of the gap.

Music, or classical music at least, was one of the few places left unaffected by the rise of quirks. Sciences had been defunded, medicine had been reformed, even food had changed - but a quirkless musician held no 'disadvantage' save an untrained ear, and that was something he could change. The elderly folks attending the student piano recitals applauded his efforts the same as the quirked children after him.)

"Huh. I kind of remember you having a violin in middle school, nerd," Bakugou muttered. "D'you still have it?"

Izuku couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Kacchan, I didn't have working hands for the entire time we were at UA, of course I don't have it anymore-"

"But I fixed your hands," Eri interrupted. "After I finished training. I Rewound them, and then that other doctor aged them up for you."

"...Okay, so I could play, if I wanted to," Izuku admitted at last. "I kind of have other priorities, though?" Like being a Top Ten Hero?

"Ah, but music is a very healthy hobby, my boy!" Yagi ruffled his hair. "Very good for stress relief - surely you could fit it into your schedule as a mental health exercise."

Izuku hummed noncommittally.

"Thank you," Izuku started to reply, but stumbled over what name to use. Did the supervillain prefer All For One when there was nobody to overhear them, or the Hisashi alias, or - some form of 'dad'-?

"Hisashi is fine," said... Hisashi. "I took a liking to it over the years. The alternate reading rather suits me, don't you think?" Right. 'A long time ago' was pretty ironic. "I won't demand to be called 'dad'; an absent father has hardly earned it. Whatever you are comfortable with using will work."

"The real question," Todoroki dodged Sato's silencing-cookie this time, "is why All For One is being so nice to Midoriya in the alternate world."

"Shigaraki's testimony described him as distant and manipulative, never kind," Uraraka agreed.

What little of such testimony there was, anyway. The supposed leader of the Paranormal Liberation Front had been killed by his subordinates within 48 hours of his capture; he had not had nearly enough time to elaborate on his own time with All for One, much less list off all the locations of his operations and labs that would have secured him a plea deal and spared him execution.

Fair enough, then. But Izuku had other, more pertinent questions. Such as, "How did you win Mom over so easily, anyway? Her former husband looked nothing like you." Was it a quirk?

"I was wondering that, too," Izuku said quietly. "It's weird that All For One looks like me in that world. My dad is completely different in Mom's photo albums."

"An old quirk of mine, from back in the day," Hisashi smiled wistfully. Called it. "'Replace'. I liberated it from a serial killer about a hundred years ago - they were wasting it, if you ask me. Fraud would have been their calling."

Izuku considered that. Villains' quirks weren't documented as thoroughly that far back in history, and then only if they were arrested; most of his studies and analyses over the years had been about heroes for a reason. And the name All For One had given it might not have been what the original user called it, either, so all he had to go on here was the name and that offhand comment about it being suited for fraud - was it perhaps a mental quirk, a passive illusion? A long-lasting one, if it worked this far into the future; it could even be permanent given the nature of quirks at that time. The activation method could be anything, he'd had access to Hisashi for days, both alive and dead, unless the death was the activation condition, which wow, that would be such a specific quirk, how did stuff that specific evolve-?

"Oh, I can answer that," Hisashi interrupted Izuku's mutter-storm, grinning widely. "Or at least provide as close an answer as anyone's ever gotten, seeing as human experimentation was banned across the world after the emergence of quirks. Not that that would have stopped anyone, normally," he murmured, "except that vigilantes enforced that law where the governments didn't, and ultimately there have always been more ethical scientists than unethical ones..."

"Thank goodness for that," Aizawa grumbled, squeezing Eri's hand.

The car turned off the shorter route home, in favor of the scenic route, which would give them an extra ten minutes for this explanation. "You've surely wondered, after all you've read, about the sheer variety of so-called 'villainous' quirks." Izuku nodded. "Not to say that there isn't a variety of quirks across the board, of course - but new powers nowadays certainly trend toward inheritance from the parents, and have more harmless effects until trained otherwise."

"It's true," Izuku told everyone else. "It's a global trend."

This was all true to Izuku's observations. He could think of several quirks in Class 1-A alone that wouldn't have been destructive on their own; it was how they were applied, in tandem with martial arts and strategy, that made them useful.

(Which only lent more weight to the idea of a quirkless hero, in his opinion.)

"Many villains' quirks, in comparison," Hisashi went on, "can't be called inherited at all. They are expressed later than most, in part because their activation conditions can't be predicted from their parents' - and are, by and large, stronger and more versatile in their untrained state than their peers'. A hero trains for growth; a villain trains to rein their power in."

Izuku considered his experience with One For All; he'd trained for both. But he didn't dispute the claim in a general sense.

Good thing One For All was already an open secret in Class A. Izuku would not have liked to have to explain that now.

While he was pondering, Hisashi turned the car down the long road that meant they were nearly at the apartment. "These fall into the broad and less-defined category of what we call latent quirks."

"Like mine," Izuku blurted out. "From back then."

"Like yours," Hisashi agreed.

"Wait, so he has a quirk in this world? Besides One For All?" Bakugou's brow furrowed. "What is it, then?"

Izuku shrugged. "No idea. I was actually quirkless."

"Even so," the villain continued, "some hypothesized that latent quirks are not like inherited quirks at all; that they occupy a place in reality closer to magic than science. The theological argument never quite fell out of fashion among quirk theorists: that latent quirks are more like a blessing, a single unformed wish granted to each soul in their time of direst need. When the time comes, it was said, the power gained corresponded to whatever they desired most."

"Huh. And they never found proof?" Izuku had always brushed off any spiritual arguments in quirk theory - it was too easy to spiral into wild conspiracies if you didn't take things with a grain of salt.

"They tried to," said Hisashi, with a sigh. "But quirks were a highly politicized topic in the early days, and not enough people dared to admit to having one, even with anonymized data, so no attempt for large-scale comparison had enough volunteers before the studies were caught up in the experimentation ban and funding was redirected to other subjects. And of course, by now, no quirkless person from those days is still alive, and nobody seems to care enough to fund a proper analysis of historical data, especially not when it would require digging up graves. So the spiritual explanation is the closest anyone ever got to a real answer.

"But we can see, easily enough, that latent quirks have become rarer with time - if both parents have a quirk, the likelihood is that the child's quirk is a mix of both of theirs. Somehow this was even more the case for both parents having latent quirks - children with latent quirks are most often born to parents where one side of the family is fewer generations removed from quirklessness than the other."

Hisashi seemed to want to add to that, but he paused, a thoughtful expression on his face. "All For One and One For All were both manifestations of latent quirks, originally. My wish would have been to seize power from the strong - and his, I suppose, to give his power away. ..I sometimes think that if he'd wished to share it, he might have lived."

There was a melancholy there that Izuku wasn't touching. It was already deeply weird to have this kind of philosophical discussion with the Symbol of Evil. So, after a moment of contemplation, he changed the subject.

"Shigaraki's quirk, Decay, is latent, isn't it?"

"Sounds like it." Izuku reached for a box of gummy candies. "Also, funny how All For One monologues about everything, not just villainy."

"You're one to talk," Sero teased from the far end of the room. "You used to mutter, now you just speak. Not that we're complaining."

Fortunately, that seemed to distract Hisashi from further reminiscing about painful things in his past. "Oh, yes, certainly. He was abused, as you were; I imagine his wish was to 'make it all go away'."

“Aww,” Uraraka pouted. 

“I believe the phrase is,” Kaminari paused for effect, “Poor little meow meow.”

Present Mic choked on his boba tea.

Izuku grimaced. "What a way to have that granted." But then, "Couldn't you have just taken it from him?"

At that, All For One chuckled. "I did offer. But for all its inconveniences, Tomura likes the defense mechanism. Far be it from me to tell him how to cope."

Isn't he your successor? Izuku thought. You could tell him to do anything.

Hisashi hummed, noncommittal. Izuku's face reddened at the realization he'd spoken out loud again. "Um. Sorry. Not to presume-"

"Oh, it's all right, Izu. I know you meant well." They were pulling up to the house, now. "But there is only so much one can demand of another without becoming overbearing - and Tomura is a difficult person to shape. To be honest," Hisashi parked, and reached around behind him for the grocery bags, "had things been a little different, he wouldn't be my successor at all."

What?

“Hold up, what?”

“Is he saying what it sounds like he’s saying-”

Yagi stared at the screen with eyes as wide as Izuku’s had been earlier. No way, he mouthed.

"It was a few years ago, you see," he smiled, "that I happened upon this particular individual; an analytical genius, a strategic mind unlike any other I had met in years, with not only the potential, but the drive for success. We met only briefly, but I kept an eye on them awhile after that, longer than I might have been expected to, because I was curious to see where they went.

"And I must say, you continue to impress me, Akatani Mikumo. Even now, years after our deal, you've never once hinted to anyone at what you've done."

A pit had formed in Izuku's stomach. "What you helped me do," he corrected, as levelly as he could.

"No," All For One said softly, eyes narrowed with cruel amusement, the delight of delivering a harsh truth. "What you've done."

"Called it, there's some other worse crime that happened, they'll reveal it later-"

“Okay, wait, so is Akatani Mikumo his real name in this universe or just an alias-”

“It’s an alias, idiot, they said so before-”

“Ow! No hitting, it was a fair question!”

“I swear that name sounds familiar,” Aizawa said to his husband in an undertone. “Tell me I’m not imagining it? Was it a case file?”

The Voice Hero shrugged. “Sorry, Shouta, I can’t remember your case files for shit.”

Eri feigned offense with an overdramatic gasp. “Language!”

“Quiet, you,” Aizawa smirked. “You’re friends with Ground Zero over there. If you haven’t gotten used to swears by now, that’s on you.”

Elsewhere, Yagi Toshinori perked up suddenly in the middle of a taskforce meeting. "Please excuse me for a moment," he said to the others, "I need to make a call."

He couldn't say what it was that made him worry, all of a sudden, only that he was worrying. And when he phoned the school, and asked Nedzu-

“He sensed a disturbance in the Force,” Kirishima handwaved dramatically. Everyone chuckled.

"What do you mean his father picked him up? Young Midoriya lives with his mother!"

"Midoriya-kun notified us of his father's arrival ahead of time, as did Mrs. Midoriya, per protocol," the principal countered.

"And the tracking chip in his school pass shows he is at home," Aizawa supplied, having been dragged into a conference call the moment Nedzu saw the caller ID.

All Might blinked. "Tracking chip?"

"Added as a safety precaution with the reissue of IDs to Class 1-A this term," Aizawa deadpanned. "Problem children chips."

“Wait, were those actually a thing?” Ashido turned around in her seat to demand answers.

Aizawa rolled his eyes. “One kidnapping was enough. Of course we redid security.”

Bakugou grimaced at the reminder.

“Actually,” Izuku spoke up, “they’re still in our IDs even now. It was incorporated into hero licenses a few years ago, as part of the post-reforms reissue. Now, if any hero goes off-grid, or is suspected of wrongdoing, we can check their location data and investigate.”

“Kind of a privacy violation,” Yaoyorozu observed. “We’re being tracked all the time? What is this, America?”

“That is a bit odd, my boy,” Yagi said. “Villains could hack the database and track heroes’ patrol patterns.”

Izuku shrugged. “They could do that even before the tracking data existed. Besides, it’s not like I decided it - everyone got the memo from the Commission with the new cards, years ago. Didn’t you guys read the contract?”

Back up a minute, Aizawa thought, what do you mean villains could track hero patrols even before the tracking chips-

Somehow, the retired Number One Hero was not reassured.

"Everything all right?" Naomasa asked him when he returned to the meeting - they had made about as much progress in his absence as it had all day, which was to say, none at all. How the HPSC managed to get bogged down by bureaucracy when they were the only ones with jurisdiction on the Tartarus breakout, he had no idea. All Might gave a surreptitious shake of his head, mouthing 'gotta go' while the chief of police was still talking.

"Gentlemen," Yagi cut in at last, over another rehash of the early morning's blame-game between the Tartarus guards and the HPSC executives, "I am afraid I do need to return to UA to confer on a matter related to the school's security-" this was true enough not to ping Naomasa's lie-detection "-any updates can be forwarded to my phone. Thank you for your time."

“Ooooh, tellem!”

“All Might versus bureaucracy, hell yeah!”

It was incredibly satisfying to get to leave with just that flimsy excuse. But he had precious little time to enjoy it, when his mind was elsewhere - singularly focused on the matter of Izuku's whereabouts, and the supposed father figure who'd come to pick him up.

The Midoriyas wouldn't mind if he stopped by for dinner, would they?

“OooooOOOOOOOO-”

“Fight! Fight! Fight!”

“Dis gon b gud-”

“Denki please spare us the ancient memes-”

“I will pause here for a short intermission,” said Looking-Glass, “to let you all enjoy the catering and use the facilities if need be. Hero Deku,” they said at a normal volume, “you had interest in my quirk, I gather? It would be my pleasure to answer your questions - you saved my mother’s life during the War.”

“Oh! If it’s not too much trouble,” Izuku got up from his seat and went over to them. “Your abilities are truly fascinating; is the choice effect based on line-of-sight or a general radius? Do you need anything to sustain the quirk once it activates? I can get you some food and water if you want - is it technically a light-based quirk, with sunlight as the power source, or is the screen itself incorporated into your equipment…?”

Toshinori stretched in his seat and reached for the remainder of Young Midoriya’s gummy candies. His successor was such a vibrant young man, with such a good heart, that it nearly pained him to witness this other him on screen; but then, Izuku had never mentioned being abused by his father, the way the Midoriya of Wunderterror claimed to be. Perhaps that made all the difference?

He ignored the part of him that pointed out how that Midoriya had still been chosen as the Ninth - how he still had One For All. Clearly, the All Might of that world had seen good in his Midoriya, too.

And really, so far, even that Midoriya hadn’t done anything wrong.

Had he?

Chapter Text

Shouta was… suspicious.

He waved Hizashi off to assemble him a plate from the buffet, half to avoid being crowded by his former students, half to have a few minutes on his own to think; Eri helped, recognizing his intentions when he pulled up the database app on his phone. Shouta was sure, you see, that he’d heard the name ‘Akatani Mikumo’ before - and with his phone’s connection to the extended database of all his case files from over the years, he was going to find out when.

Assuming it wasn’t a one-off mention of the name that he’d simply heard and forgotten, of course.

“Eraserhead.” Shouta jolted, looking up to see Yagi looming beside him. (He was never going to tell Yagi how startling he could be. Shouta’s reputation would never survive the teasing.) “You’re looking through your notes, too, I see.” He held up his phone, the screen indicating the search function was still running - just like on Shouta’s phone. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who recognized it - Midoriya did, too, but he seems too preoccupied with our host for me to ask right now.”

Technically, Midoriya wasn’t any more occupied with Looking-Glass than he was with anybody who had an interesting quirk - but Shouta knew better than to interrupt the kid’s quirk interrogation. (Not that anyone called it that to his face.) “More likely than not, the story will manage to jog our memories in the next few chapters,” he supposed. “And if Midoriya recognized it, he’ll tell us everything he remembers later.” Which would, as usual, be a lot.

(In fact, was Midoriya a genius in this universe as much as he was in that one?)

“He did recognize it, didn’t he?” Yagi scratched his chin. “Interesting, when no one else seemed to.”

And it was. Shouta’s first assumption was that Midoriya had used Mikumo as an alias here, just as his counterpart had there, which would be worth looking up next if the kid didn’t just tell them upfront.

If that were the case, though, then he had to wonder what else was similar between their two worlds. Such as:

“Have you met Midoriya’s father?”

Yagi blinked. “Not that I recall, no. Inko divorced him years ago, on grounds of abandonment.” Blue eyes flickered to the blank screen and back. “I’ll be interested to see how All For One avoids the same fate, assuming his disguise holds. Inko was already well into proceedings by the time Midoriya entered UA, after all.”

“All right. But you’ve seen photos of Midoriya Hisashi in our world, at least?” Yagi was - ahem - involved with Midoriya Inko, so one would think he ought to recognize the ex.

…Right?

He was surprised, and beginning to be concerned, that Yagi shook his head.

“You’d have to ask Midoriya about his father,” Yagi shrugged. “As far as I know, he’s been absent along the same timeframe as his counterpart on the screen - if not longer - and Inko doesn’t keep photos of him in the house anymore. The only people in this room who could recognize him are Midoriya himself, and perhaps young Bakugou, if he still remembers.”

Hm. If Shouta recalled correctly, even the file they’d had for Midoriya at UA hadn’t had a photo of his father. It’d had a signature, though, he thought. The detail had seemed insignificant at the time, because Midoriya Hisashi never needed to contact Izuku, or send him anything in the mail.

…Shouta was going to have to look into that next, now that it was on his mind.

His phone beeped to signal the search was finished. He looked down at it, and frowned.

‘Akatani Mikumo’, ‘Akatani’, ‘Mikumo’: 0 results found.

"-projection is through my support equipment," Looking-Glass explained. "Otherwise it would be completely in my mind."

Izuku's pen flashed over the open page in his field notebook, recording these details in his personal shorthand. "Fascinating," he said, and meant it; "support equipment in Japan is decades behind when it comes to mental quirks - despite my best efforts to the contrary," he added in a mutter, under his breath.

Looking-Glass smiled, flattered, and offered him the card for their support company. "You're welcome to visit the campus for a tour," they offered. "I'm familiar with as much of your work in the analysis field as in heroics - it really is a pleasure to meet you in either capacity."

"I- thank you," Izuku managed not to blush, "that means a lot."

"Perhaps later this week we can have a discussion with more privacy," Looking-Glass suggested with a knowing tilt of their head. "I would very much like to hear about your thoughts on the new quirk enhancement treatments presented at the last conference." They held out their hand.

Izuku shook it, careful to modulate his grip strength, and beamed at them. “Excellent. I’ll follow up with a time and place.”

"In the meantime, please don't miss out on the catering for tonight's event," Looking-Glass stepped back. "This intermission lasts just ten more minutes."

"Oh! Then I'd better get to it," Izuku winked, and made his way to the buffet, picking out several of his favorite foods from the offerings. He knew a dismissal when he heard one, after all, and Izuku respected boundaries.

No matter how much he itched to take apart his new acquaintance's quirk and see how it worked, inside.

Chapter Text

The lights dimmed again, signalling the end of intermission, shortly after Izuku had loaded up a plate with all his favorites from the buffet. (They’d really outdone themselves with the catering for this event.) When everyone had resumed their seats, just as snack-laden as he was, the lights dimmed further, and the screen reactivated, to open on a dark room.

4. A Memory.

Akatani Mikumo had met with Giran in a black medical mask and nondescript grey and black streetwear, a tight knit cap hiding his hair. When he stepped through Kurogiri’s gate, into a meeting room prepared in one of All For One’s many properties, he’d foregone the more stringent measures of hiding his identity: he was in something close to formalwear, with black curls he’d probably tried to tame, and carried an unmarked schoolbag.

He’d clearly made an effort to dress up for the meeting, and it amused the supervillain that he’d tried as much as it flattered him.

Izuku blinked several times. “Oh, this is his POV - I was wondering. Okay.” He reached for his bowl of popcorn. (It was extra-butter flavored.)

“He looks a little bit like those old photos of Shimura Tenko, doesn’t he?” Yagi squinted at the screen, intrigued. “I think it’s the black hair that cinches it. If it was still green, I wouldn’t see a resemblance.”

Izuku hummed, not considering that train of thought for now, thanks.

“Good evening, All For One-sama,” the boy bowed. The anxious energy Yamikumo had exuded in front of the informant was gone; now, stood before the most dangerous man in the underworld, he was at ease. In others, this attitude was accompanied by arrogance, by expectation - the boy expressed neither. He was simply not afraid.

“Akatani Mikumo,” All For One greeted him at last. “Come, sit. Tell me about your request.”

Akatani sat. From his backpack, he retrieved a folder, and laid it on the table - a dossier. “I’d like to contract out a hit on this man.”

He had angled the folder just right to be in clear view of the cameras; attentive, this one. Had he guessed at his blindness, and the quirks used to compensate? Or had he simply assumed the helmet had an inbuilt HUD connected with the cameras, as was the recent trend for support equipment?

Kurogiri stepped out of a portal in the shadows to pour the tea. Yamikumo sipped quietly, and waited while All For One reviewed the contents of the dossier. It was - incredibly detailed. Everything about the target, from his quirk and appearance to his schedules, habits, social circles, his home address shared with a wife and son-

Midoriya Izuku. Quirk: latent.

All For One closed the folder. “This is more than enough information for the matter to be handled as soon as tonight,” he informed the boy. “Have no doubt, he will be dead.”

“I need more than his death, sir,” Akatani said. “I need him to disappear.”

That could be arranged, too, for a price. The supervillain traced the lines of kanji on the folder’s cover: Midoriya Hisashi. But the question would remain in his mind until he asked, so he did. “Why?”

In lieu of an explanation, Akatani shrugged off his jacket, baring arms marred by dozens of starburst-shaped burns and scars. He noticed All For One looking, and clarified: “Not these ones.” Rather, he continued to unbutton his shirt, an oversized white garment, and stood, facing away so the cameras could see clearly, as he let fall the fabric from his shoulders.

“Oh-”

“Holy shit, that’s terrible-”

“Ohmigod little Mido-!”

Bakugou clapped a hand over his mouth, gagging. He reached for his water to calm his stomach down.

It meant he did not see All For One’s hands clench briefly into fists, or the way his arms twitched with the instinctive urge to reach out. For the briefest moment, the patchwork of scars, bandages, and variously-healing open wounds had reminded him of someone else; and All For One could imagine too-clearly the mingled stench of blood and antiseptic cream. But what had moved him most - what made him repress the urge to use a healing quirk, what twisted his expression where it hid beneath the mask - were the loose, clumsy bandages, rags stained and yellowed where they’d been boiled for re-use. A pragmatism you only observed when you had nothing. The way his brother once had.

Even a supervillain was not made of stone.

“Name your price,” All For One told Akatani, knowing he would accept any offer for the death of the man responsible for what he saw.

“...Relatable,” someone said quietly, and nearly everyone nodded.

“His quirk, described in the dossier,” Akatani listed off, pulling his shirt back on. “And,” he turned back to the last page, where the family names were listed, pointed at Izuku’s name-

“-my own.”

“Oh shit-”

Izuku was facing the screen, his eyes distant; so he missed how Shinsou’s gaze flickered in his direction, something like sympathy in his eyes. Something like understanding.

The scene faded out and then back in to a new location, bright and cheerful and warm - everything the previous scene hadn’t been.

As the three Midoriyas - from a certain point of view - bustled about the kitchen putting groceries away, Izuku was pleased to see that Hisashi wasn’t taking any liberties with his mom. In fact, Inko was kind of cold to him - only natural treatment, Izuku decided, for an absent husband after this long.

All For One bore it well; he acted the part of the sheepish husband, grateful not to be served divorce papers, so accurately Izuku almost wondered if it weren’t an act. (It was, though. He knew.) Hisashi let Izuku show him where all the dishes were, when they were done loading the fridge and the cabinets, and Inko started him on the unenviable task of cutting onions for dinner, sending Izuku off to his room to put his things away and rest for a bit in the living room.

“It’s alt-Mido’s room!”

“Looks just like the nerd’s actual room used to, but neater.”

“Wha- Kacchan, I’m not that messy-”

“Ya used to be.”

Which was much appreciated, because Izuku would have been completely distracted in the kitchen: he was still reeling from the truths revealed to him in the car. He’d been considered for All For One’s successor? What did that even mean? Why would the supervillain even need a successor - actually, no, that one answered itself now with what he knew about the results of that battle with All Might. (Izuku had always wondered what the deal was with the helmet…)

Hm. But All For One didn’t look injured whatsoever, now, so did he still need a successor? Using Shigaraki as a long-term distraction did make sense if he meant to operate in the shadows of the shadows, or if he was taking some time to lay low before starting a new attack on Japan in the next century; there were plenty of places overseas with the potential to be destabilized and turned into the next hive of scum and villainy-

“As it happens, All For One’s influence was being kept in check in Asia by the triads in Korea and China,” All Might explained. “He branched out into the Americas, but because he spent so much time in Japan, his influence was biggest here. In some ways, his feud with the One For All users helped keep the rest of the world safe.”

Engrossed as he was in these thoughts, Izuku didn’t notice the doorbell ringing, or Hisashi offering to answer it, until a familiar voice reached his ears from the door.

 

For once in his damned life, All Might would really have appreciated his intuition being wrong.

Just once.

When it counted.

But no. He had had the strangest suspicion that something was off about Young Midoriya’s father, despite having only heard about the man secondhand - he hadn’t even looked at the security footage of UA yet - and couldn’t help but feel compelled to follow up on it, just in case Hisashi Midoriya was somehow connected to All For One’s escape-

And then who answered the door but the man himself, in- was that an All Might apron?

Yagi wheezed, harder than he was supposed to with his weak lungs, and burst into a coughing fit. Izuku thumped him on the back amidst the rest of Class A’s collective laughter.

“He didn’t,” Ashido shrieked, fumbling with her phone for a photo before the scene changed.

‘Soup-erhero!’ it said, in bold English font on a blue-and-red striped background. Oh, god. Yagi had authorized that merch line back when he was first starting out - it was terrible.

So this was it, huh? All For One was going to kill him, and the first volley of attacks had just begun with cringy merchandise. The man was meeting Yagi’s eyes without a hint of fear, because he knew that Yagi knew who he was, and moreover, that there was not a damn thing he could do about it.

They remained frozen in a tableau of mutual enmity for a long minute - until a cheerful voice inquired from just behind the supervillain:

“Dad? Who’s here?”

No.

It couldn’t be.

A flash of malicious glee lit up All For One’s face at the stricken expression that no doubt crossed Yagi’s - but it disappeared in the next second as he turned to look at Izuku, replaced instead by an unbearable fondness. “I was just finding that out,” he said. “Unless you already know him, Izu?”

“He DIDN’T - he did not just pretend not to know him aaaaa-”

“This man is stone cold, holy shit-”

“We’re reaching levels of petty that haven’t been seen before-”

Young Midoriya looked past the villain, saw Yagi, and facepalmed. “Dad, that’s my teacher. I know for a fact you saw the broadcast - you were overseas, not under a rock.” And the boy smiled at All For One, to make it clear he was just teasing. “He’s probably here from UA to check on me. I did say Aizawa-sensei was suspicious of you when we left.”

Really? Then Eraserhead’s intuition was to be commended.

“You know, I don’t think my counterpart was,” Aizawa narrowed his eyes at the screen. “Which was stupid, because he should have been, but why would Midoriya lie?”

He glanced at the real Izuku, curious, and found him opening his mouth as if to answer, then closing it without saying a word. Problem Child watched the scene unfold with a calculating gleam in his eyes, an anticipatory set to his shoulders, as though he’d figured out his counterpart’s motivations and wanted only to see what he would do next.

“Oh, is that Yagi-san?” Inko called out from further inside the house. “He can join us for dinner, I have some meat that hasn’t been fried-”

Normally Yagi would formulate some excuse to leave - embarrassed of his limited diet, and wary of appearing to accept any of Midoriya-san’s advances given her marital status - but that was before he knew the home he would be wrecking belonged to his sworn nemesis. So instead, he smiled, and called back, “That would be lovely, Inko-san, thank you,” and stepped past a shocked and offended All For One without a care for the chaos that would come.

“OOOO GETTEM YAGI-SENSEI!” Ashido and Kaminari cheered.

“I believe this is what one would call, ‘All Spite’.” Todoroki’s deadpan left Shinsou choking on his coffee jelly.

5. Dinner.

What followed was quite possibly the most dramatic, tense dinner of Izuku’s life.

Over a meal of - naturally - katsudon, the four of them tried and failed to sustain small talk about UA and neighborhood gossip. All Might was clearly struggling not to make any quips about Hisashi’s identity, having no idea Izuku knew about it - and Izuku kept it that way, playing oblivious to the looks the two men were sending at each other, and the way Yagi flinched every time he called Hisashi ‘Dad’.

(Izuku might be doing that last bit on purpose. He might.)

“Wow, sassy much?” Ashido smirked. “Guess that’s the biggest difference between their world and ours.”

“Okay, but why though?” Kirishima jutted his chin at the screen. “Like, he loses nothing by just being quiet.”

Because it’s expedient, Izuku thought, and again didn’t say, even as his friends looked in his direction for analysis. Because giving up plausible deniability would be a waste of years of effort, but not nearly as much as losing All For One’s respect. One was more damning, more final, than the other.

His mom totally noticed their weird staring contest, but she seemed more entertained by the drama than anything; in fact, she eyed Yagi up more openly than she usually did when Izuku's mentor visited, in a transparent attempt to rile 'Hisashi' up with jealousy. (Which, gross, Izuku did not need to know Inko actually liked Yagi-sensei like that.)

“Whoa, Midoriya-san, hold up-”

“Clearly she’s the Sass Master, must be where alt-Mido learned it from.”

If glares could do physical damage, All For One would have already finished off All Might an hour ago.

Would it be worse, Izuku wondered, if he told his mentor the truth? ‘Oh, sensei, I'm not really All For One's son, he just thinks I could be a good successor. You know, like Shigaraki.’

Hm.

Or was it more like, ‘Sorry, All Might, but I'm in on it too. I'm letting All For One replace Hisashi because he helped me cover up that I had the real one killed years ago-’

"Izu?" Izuku blinked out of his imaginings, finding Hisashi smiling indulgently at him from the next chair. "You were making a weird face. Did I mess up the onions?"

“Tell me I’m not the only one who’s totally creeped out by the idea of that guy smiling?”

“Certainly not,” Yagi shuddered. “As a career supervillain, he should never be so happy.”

Izuku winced.

"Huh? Oh, sorry," Izuku let his cheeks flare, "I was thinking about something else for a minute. What were we talking about?"

"I was asking Yagi-san about your analysis work," Hisashi chuckled. "UA teaches quirk and strategic analysis in second and third year as an elective, does it not? I'd always thought you would apply for placement testing in that subject, but he says you haven't."

“There’s another difference.” Izuku fiddled with another box of candies. “UA didn’t have placement testing for analysis when I attended.”

Actually, it did, thought Aizawa, but was grateful it hadn’t come up while he was still teaching the kid.

Izuku sipped his water to give himself time to think of an answer. "Well," he started, anxiously averting his eyes to his bowl, "I wanted to prioritize my regular subjects - especially Foundational Heroics, since it took this long to get a handle on my Quirk. Actually," he lowered his voice, verging on mumbling, "I was going to ask Sir Nighteye about the detective side of his agency, but he didn't like me very much when I started, and then there was the Overhaul raid..."

"Is that so?" Hisashi eyed him thoughtfully. "Even though you're well ahead of your peers in all the regular subjects? I know you're fluent in English," he switched languages, eyes crinkling at the corners. "I could speak to the principal about giving you preferential treatment. It's the least you deserve as my son."

“He even has the accent of a supervillain,” Jirou had her face in her hands. “Is this - how in the world does he pass as a civilian? They could convict this man on vibes alone.”

“That’s a bit unfair,” drawled Present Mic in perfect Received Pronunciation.

Into the brief stunned silence, Eri contributed, “Fuckin’ bourgeoisie.”

Izuku snorted, going red again. "Dad, I'm not that good, you're embarrassing me."

"On the contrary, Midoriya-shounen," All Might said brightly, "Present Mic has been suggesting you be moved up a few levels in English. If you asked to be tested, I'm sure you can go beyond!"

This time, Izuku's embarrassment didn't have to be feigned; he hid his face in his hands. "Yagi-sensei, don't encourage him, he'll actually pester the principal!" Which, funny though it might be, would probably bring about levels of chaos not yet observed by humanity.

“Four words,” Aizawa declared. “Principal Nedzu’s Personal Student.”

Half of the group shivered, and they were right to, he thought, because Nedzu’s ‘guidance’ would have made Midoriya dangerously cunning.

Hisashi ruffled his hair. "Do whatever you want, Izu," he told him. "I'll support the choice you make. Everything I do is all for you."

Yagi flinched and dropped his chopsticks.

Beside Izuku, the real Yagi also flinched and dropped his chopsticks. Izuku used a strand of Blackwhip to catch them before they hit the ground.

"Let me get a fresh set for you, Toshinori-kun," Inko said, already out of her chair.

"Oh, it's all right," Yagi stammered, "I'm - I think that was the limits of my appetite. Thank you."

Izuku saw All For One's evil grin out of the corner of his eye and pretended, dutifully, that he hadn't.

“Oh, so he’s doing it to stay on All For One’s good side,” Sero realized aloud. Understanding crossed a lot of people’s faces, at that.

Did it really take you that long to catch on? Izuku thought uncharitably.

With all the drama over dinner, Izuku had been waiting for All Might to make up some excuse to bring him back to the dorms - but Hisashi had clearly thrown him off enough he didn't even think of it. (That might have been his plan all along. Izuku wasn't keeping track.) Inko brought out dessert, a quartet of bouncy green jellos in fancy glasses which even Yagi could eat, and offered the retired hero a coffee to bring with him on his way out, and that was that - he had left.

Izuku got up to use the bathroom, and while he was there, his phone buzzed with a text - from Hisashi.

[Dad (+81-45-477-4111)]

[Dad, 20:52: Meet in the park in half an hour.]

[Dad, 20:53: Important Quirk advice.]

All For One. Was going to help him. With One For All?

I mean, he can't steal it, Izuku thought, so what do I have to lose?

“He couldn’t steal it? Was that true in our world, too?” someone asked. Izuku was distracted, flipping to a new page in his field journal in anticipation - advice in that world might very well work in this one.

“It was,” Yagi answered for him, to various surprised exclamations from the others. “In fact, it was the only quirk we know of that he couldn’t steal, which was part of why I was still a front-line fighter in Kamino all those years ago, despite my limitations.”

[Izuku, 20:53: Understood.]

Fifteen minutes later, Inko announced she was going to bed early. "The guest room is all set up for you, Hisashi dear," she said, more warmly than she'd been all day; "Izuku can help you find more blankets if you need them."

"Thank you, Inko," Hisashi smiled back at his not-wife. "Sleep well."

They sat in silence in front of the TV for another ten minutes after that, and then Hisashi stood up and headed for the door. Izuku hefted up the bag he'd prepared after their texts, and followed him.

“Oooooo, something’s gonna happen, isn’t it, oh man-”

(Something was definitely going to happen, and it wasn't going to be limited to on-screen.)

Chapter Text

The last chapter had concluded on that ominous note with a dissolution into darkness, as it had during the intermission. This time, though, the darkness was interrupted moments after as streetlamps bloomed into being at regular intervals down a nighttime street, diffuse and dim. Their light painted lines and muted colors into the scene, just as sound faded in, the distant echoes of city life and the rustle of leaves on the trees.

For a long moment, the place was deserted, empty of life beyond the echoes and the plants. Then, two figures appeared, rippling through the barrier of shadows in the background and into the illuminated center of the screen.

Shouta’s problem child, not-Midoriya, with a pensive look on his face; and the looming black silhouette of All For One, white hair gleaming under the streetlamps, just beside him.

They were not talking yet, so Shouta turned his gaze the real Midoriya’s way, again, keeping half an ear on the narration. 

VI. Mutter-Storm.

Musutafu’s streets were quietest between nine p.m. and one a.m., something Izuku knew from both personal experience and a thorough analysis of publicly-accessible data; he’d compared the crime statistics and hero duty schedules for his neighborhood years ago, and posted them online as a subject for discussion, and it only occurred to him now that while charting out the patrol routes of local heroes based on their sightings and sharing the data online once might have been harmless, he probably oughtn’t have kept updating the charts every month for the past three years.

Because All For One had beamed at him on their way to the park, and shown him the very same map overlay on his phone that ‘Yamikumo’ had posted a week ago-

Wait. What?!

Shouta’s jaw dropped. At last, he knew why the name Yamikumo was so familiar - even he had used that data before - is that what Midoriya meant by being able to track heroes even before the chips-?

(But there was no time to contemplate, because the story was continuing.)

-when Izuku observed the roundabout path they were taking. And - praised him for the analysis. “It’s made everyone’s lives easier,” he said - meaning not only civilians, but also criminals. “Would you believe Giran was about to headhunt you for his own operation that day?” A snort. “I broke one of his fingers, and told him he’d keep his distance or he’d lose the rest.”

Everyone who knew the fate of the real Giran shuddered. Shouta remembered finding the body.

Izuku didn’t make a face at that; he had not forgotten just who he was dealing with here. Of course, All For One took it as him being unaffected by it entirely - if the pleased look in his eyes was any indication.

Their premeditated route led them to the southern end of the park by a winding footpath, the section devoid of working streetlamps. Izuku was well-acquainted with the place - he’d gone there with Kacchan after school, when they were little; slept there more than once when Hisashi locked him out of the house, later. It could well be that the supervillain had picked it for just that reason.

Who knew?

“Isn’t that the park next to your agency, Deku?” wondered Uraraka idly. “It looks almost the same as it does here, just with younger trees.”

Shouta looked back up at the screen, squinting at the background, and yes, that was Midoriya’s agency, or what would become his agency, tucked into the bland row of run-down office buildings he could just barely make out in the dark. In the modern day, it looked almost identical - his problem child had surprised him with the choice of a subdued exterior, given Might Tower’s comparatively iconic contribution to the Tokyo skyline.

(He had wondered, the first time he saw it, just when Midoriya decided not to succeed All Might’s image the way he’d succeeded his quirk.)

All For One spoke again, on the screen, and Shouta tuned back in: whether he wanted to or not, his well-honed instincts demanded he listen whenever the supervillain spoke.

“I have a hypothesis I’d like to test about One For All,” he said, when some quirk or another had made sure they were alone. (Infrared vision? Izuku had always thought that was the most likely method he’d used in Kamino, when the helmet was gone.) “But the quirk does change with every generation, so let’s start with what you can tell me about it, in case the answer is already there.”

For a moment, Izuku imagined what it would be like if he hadn’t met All For One prior to Kamino, and received this request. What would he have done? Refused, of course, and probably fled - or tried to flee. But then, if he’d never met All For One before now, then he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place - and the current him, who shared history with the supervillain outside that multi-century quirk feud, had already trusted the king of the underworld with more, and worse.

So he told him everything.

Yagi stifled a choking cough in one of the many handkerchiefs he carried around.

From the back of the room: “What does he mean, worse?”

Months - mere months - from the bone-breaking beginnings and early attempts at compensation with Shoot Style, to the change in visualization that led him to Full Cowl; to the fight with Overhaul, and Eri’s Rewind (“Yes, I did borrow her quirk,” All For One confirmed as an aside, “I’d been waiting for a quirk like Rewind to appear for years. Good guess.”), and his most recent discovery-

“-he called them the Vestiges, traces of the previous users left alive within One For All. I activated Blackwhip by accident during a training match - he said there’s six more? But I’ve barely had time to investigate just that quirk, and it’s agonizing when uncontrolled, so I only know about a couple of the other predecessors’ abilities…”

He trailed off, for Hisashi had leaned back against the nearest tree, arms crossed, expression thoughtful. "That is roughly in line with my expectations," he said, flickers of red static illuminating his silhouette in the dark. "One For All has the unique problem of being both a first- and ninth-generation quirk in a world where naturally-inherited quirks, like the ones we discussed earlier today, have only reached fifth- or sixth-gen; that, on top of it being latent, makes it overpowered and highly unstable - especially for this century - with few or none of the inbuilt failsafes possessed by modern quirks, or my own.”

“Ninth gen?!” Kaminari exclaimed. “Holy shit, no wonder it’s so OP!” Collective agreement from the rest of the class - Midoriya, for all that he rarely went out to fight nowadays, was the biggest powerhouse in their generation. The world population was only just reaching seventh gen, now.

He emphasized his point with an upturned palm, red glow brightening with an electric crackle before it dimmed down again; the forest ambience from moments before was displaced by an unnatural quiet. Izuku’s entire being seemed to attune to the power, as if magnetized, even after it faded away.

“It would seem,” Hisashi continued, “my hypothesis is worth testing in this generation, if you would like to do so.”

“Sure,” Izuku nodded, calling on a bit of One For All and getting into a fighting stance. “What do I do?”

“No need to move,” Hisashi told him. “Stand, or sit if you can do that, and raise output by two percent every minute until you reach your maximum workable level. I’ll gather preliminary data.”

That was… far less painful than he’d honestly expected. Especially since Izuku had been practicing calling on Full Cowl outside of classes for a while now - while he could only really get to about 20 percent in combat exercises, it was closer to 30 while standing still the way he was doing. The fine control necessary to uptick by precisely two percent every minute was a pleasant strain on his focus, like attempting a violin piece from memory, or following along with Uraraka’s demonstration of Gunhead’s martial arts katas.

“You’re at fifty percent nowadays, aren’t you, Deku?”

Midoriya absently hummed an affirmative, his gaze fixed intently on the screen. A notebook had appeared in one of his hands; the other held a pen, hovering millimeters from the paper, in anticipation.

Twenty percent… the brightening flickers of green lightning around him cast strange, sharp shadows on their surroundings. Hisashi’s eyes barely registered the light; his gaze was distant, and Izuku assumed, fixed upon something other than the real.

“Huh,” Yagi muttered into his handkerchief. “The one in our world used to do that too, sometimes. Even in prison, he could stare through you just like that. The creep.”

“Was that why you bought a bunch of Evil Eye pendants in that street fair?” Midoriya wondered quietly.

“...It might have been.”

Twenty-four percent… twenty-six… twenty-eight… Izuku’s eyelid twitched as he neared the borderline of what power he could draw. He turned his focus inward, on steadying his breathing, and held Full Cowl steady at thirty, though the sensation made his hands itch. It took Hisashi a moment to catch his attention again, hand extended in the universal gesture of ‘turn it down’.

“Now,” the man said when he’d lowered to 8%, “can you activate Blackwhip?” His fingers twitched, and a narrow column erupted from the earth, off to Izuku’s side. “Use that as a target if you need one - or can it be held onto passively the way Full Cowl can?”

Midoriya was muttering under his breath again, so softly that only Jirou could probably hear him with any clarity, and scribbling away in his notebook at something approaching the speed of sound; Bakugou, sitting nearby, kept darting uneasy glances between him and the not-Midoriya on screen.

Izuku pulled on the quirk, gritting his teeth at the weird sort-of-pain it spawned in his shoulders, and sent half of the energy tendrils to grab onto the column. “It’s more manageable with a target to hold - thank you for that - but I can hold it on its own if needed, too. I haven’t had as much time to study it, so the fine movements are iffy, but in a combat situation it still brute-forces well enough to be useful.”

“And can you layer it with Full Cowl?”

Could he? Izuku tried. He’d done it before, but - “Not at the same power output as before,” he admitted after a minute. “If I raise it past sixteen percent…” the tendrils flailed uselessly before flickering out, leaving his muscles sore. “Damn,” Izuku muttered under his breath, rolling his shoulders.

Hisashi, meanwhile, seemed very interested in the results of his mysterious observation. “I see,” he murmured, eyes bright - no, they were glowing, actually, the same faint red of his quirk now in his irises. “It really does… and the balancing…” he trailed off into muttering, hand over his mouth, and the familiarity of the gesture struck Izuku after a moment’s delay like a gong-

Haha, I do that, he thought, not quite sure why it bothered him the way it did-

Yagi shifted uncomfortably, because it bothered him quite a lot, actually, these similarities between his successor and his nemesis. He’d had years to forget, to mentally re-associate Midoriya’s muttering with a positive instead of a negative, but with it presented like this, right in front of him?

It was almost enough for him to wonder, privately, could he be-?

And from the way people were glancing at Midoriya from around the room, Yagi was not the only one.

“My observations support the hypothesis,” Hisashi spoke up at a more audible volume. “Now, I think, is the time to test it. You’ve seen Star Wars?”

“The original franchise? Or the-” Izuku grimaced- “quirked remake?”

“Oh, good, you have taste.”

“Of course he’s a vintage Star Wars fan,” Kaminari groaned.

(Midoriya looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it and closed his mouth.)

“More to the point - I assume you’ve meditated before.” Which wasn’t a question, but in fact, he had. 

...From Star Wars, actually. Izuku had been intrigued by the concept of meditating Jedi being able to go without food and water. He’d found he still needed to eat and drink, of course, trance state or otherwise, but when he couldn’t sleep for pain, or hunger, or paranoia about being caught sleeping outside by a stray hero on patrol, meditating let him ignore everything for a time.

“Damn, do they really have to get us with the sad stuff again?” Uraraka murmured.

“Would Midoriya be Midoriya without some kind of tragic backstory?” Shouto deadpanned. Then he paused. “That was unkind of me, Midoriya, I apologize.”

The villain sat down cross-legged on the grass, and Izuku followed suit. “You surely recall the concept of the Force,” Hisashi said, and Izuku nodded again.

The view on the screen narrowed into darkness, like eyes were closing. Sound continued, but this time, it was resonant, ringing, like All For One’s words were spoken from every direction, and it raised goosebumps on Shouta’s arms, the hairs on the back of his neck.

Midoriya, too, he noticed, had gone very still and quiet. No voices interrupted the moment now.

“Imagine, for me, that the Force exists; that every living thing touches it, for all that it exists outside the dimensions we know. If we close our eyes, then, as you have done, we can imagine the Force as a light…”

The screen began to change - or had it always been changing - growing brighter, luminous, threaded through with gold, emanating from a point in the middle distance-

And Izuku heard more, distantly, about the nature of quirks, but his attention had turned inward, so the last real thought he had was, let there be light-

Chapter Text

The screen flashed a lighter grey - and returned to darkness again. As they watched, vague greyish shapes rippled across, forming up into the background of the same scene the darkness had closed on, almost. Everything was blurry, outlines of trees and grass, and it was becoming clearer: just as the echoes of words All For One had been speaking were now resolving into something audible again.

VII. Visions.

“...imagine the Force as a light,” Hisashi murmured, opening his eyes as he spoke, for he didn’t need them closed to envision this - it was, if he chose to pay attention, his reality, because:

“Moreover, let us imagine that Quirks come from the Force: that things with quirks glow brother in our senses than the rest. You know from my voice that I am here in front of you. And I am full of quirks, so I must glow very brightly. Picture that light, and use it as your beacon.”

Just as I can use you as mine.

Abruptly, clarity was imposed upon it all: a night-vision effect, the whole landscape rendered in black-and-white like something out of a science fiction film. And atop that, as if drawn in, were lines of light threading through everything, dimmer and brighter in turns: that same ominous fluorescence that many in the audience remembered from footage of All For One’s labs, or from horror games, if nothing else.

And the brightest lines were outlining the viewer, whose outstretched hand contained a dim spiral where it gestured toward the Midoriya Izuku sitting in the lotus pose before them-

-lines of sun-gold covering his entire body, like a drawing of the meridians, dimming and brightening like the beating of a heart.

Toshinori glanced at his Midoriya, who stared transfixed at the screen, mouth slack, and thought about the Looking-Glass viewing he had attended, so many years ago.

Multiple-quirk manifestation. At last. Every user of One For All glowed brighter than the one before; All For One had wondered for centuries if there was a limit to that light, because his ever-rarer glimpses of the quirk holders had only shown growth.

Moments of time played out like short clips of film: vague grey figures with light threaded through their limbs, or their head, or their hands. Flashes of movement present just long enough to show the dimmer meridian patterns underlying the primary glow - each, like the narration said, brighter than the last. One, Two, Three, Four, Toshinori counted unconsciously, Five, Six, Seven-

A silhouette that could only have been him, at his prime, the meridians lit up brighter in him than any of the others, no other light - no other quirk - to compare against, and then:

Until Izu.

Midoriya of the other world, with a faint fluorescent outline the same as all those others, the beaten-down boy that had sold his quirk to the Give-And-Take Cryptid and stared at All For One with such uncannily serious eyes as his quirk-light was taken away.

Yamikumo had borne the dim glow of a powerful latent quirk when they first met, face to face. Taking that for himself had rendered him, arguably, more dangerous: a genius, a tactical prodigy, who did not shy from bloodshed if it was expedient, and now undetectable to All For One’s first instinct. He had known, that very night, that if the boy were ever turned against him - by a yakuza with a grudge, by the HPSC, by a foreign government with the resources to train an assassin - he would very likely achieve what the eight holders of his brother’s quirk hadn’t.

“Was that - something they did? Back then?” squeaked one of the students - Toshinori missed which one.

“Of course it was,” Midoriya snapped, louder than he might have meant to say it from how he clapped a hand over his mouth the next second. “I mean, really, we have records of it with Hawks and Lady Nagant, and they were just the ones that eventually entered the public eye…”

And that simply couldn’t be allowed to happen.

How convenient was it, then, that it didn’t? All Might had met Izuku Midoriya the quirkless civilian and - given him One For All! When he’d realized what had happened, watching the Sports Festival, he’d damaged his respirator from laughing so hard.

Then, Kamino. There had been no pretext for capturing Izu over the summer break that would keep Tomura from being curious - Izu had already drawn his attention enough that he stalked him to the mall for a confrontation. All For One had let Tomura kidnap a student of his choice, and tried not to be disappointed when he picked the flashy explosive boy. Perhaps we will catch him on a rescue mission, then, he’d hoped, eager to see his iteration of the quirk. Instead, he’d managed a few glances in Izu’s direction, with little time to think about it - oh, but what he’d seen.

Toshinori couldn’t help the flicker of pride in his chest as he saw other-Midoriya leap into the middle of the Battle of Kamino with the same determination as had really happened: the fading flickers of One For All in other-Yagi, and the opposing flare of the quirk in his successor, equally dim, but gold.

One For All was subdued in Izu in a way that even the original stockpiling quirk hadn’t been. In prison, between bouts of heavy sedation, he’d wondered about it, forming and discarding hypotheses with what indirect data he could glean from both his memory and the ongoing feedback from the Search quirk he’d taken off that rescue hero. It had been slow going, like deriving equations from first principles - until one idea came to him that fit.

Then it was only a matter of waiting. Breaking out of Tartarus, with his pick of the quirks within, was easy now his incentive was there. Restoring himself with young Eri’s Rewind? Child’s play. (Not literally; he’d borrowed the quirk, rather than let her rewind him, and given it back after.) 

“So that’s how he did that?” Eri blurted out. “I should have known, but damn!”

“You spend too much time around Bakugou,” Aizawa grumbled.

And in the heat of the moment, on the high of his triumph, back to his full power, he’d forsaken the League no doubt waiting for him somewhere. They would keep.

He’d gone to Izu. He wanted to know.

And again, the whole screen dissolved into mist and fog.

-let there be light-

Izuku was in the place of mist again, surrounded by the colorful lights of the Vestiges. It was… not as peaceful as the last time.

Toshinori gasped - he recognized the Vestiges from Izuku’s drawings and the records they’d eventually been able to find of the people that they’d been - they were all the same as in the real world. And other-Midoriya was there, a little more corporeal than the rest of them, clouds swirling around his body and the lower half of his face.

“So those are the ghosts haunting your quirk, huh?” Shinsou wondered loudly, over the rising murmurs from the rest of the audience. “That’s pretty cool.”

“What the fuck,” Fifth was shouting, squirming in the grasp of Fourth and Second. “Kid - Ninth - what is going on? You know him?”

Oh, dear.

“Give him a second, Banjo,” Nana rolled her eyes. “He just got here. He’ll explain.”

Toshinori attempted to covertly wipe the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, at seeing his mentor again.

Izuku opened his mouth to do just that, but words weren’t coming out yet. He scrubbed a hand down his face, frustrated.

“So is the big bad really your dad?” a yellow light - Third - leaned in conspiratorially. “You didn’t really act like it when it was just you two, but if it’s a strained family situation from being on opposite sides of the law, you’re hardly the first one. Heh. First.”

“Well,” Izuku choked out through the dissipating mist on his face. He coughed again, at last clearing his throat. “I’m pretty sure our only genetic relation is because of One For All. But we have some similar habits that kind of surprised me?” Like the muttering: Izuku had thought he was the only one who did that.

“You do have remarkably similar personalities at times,” said another voice. “You and my brother even look a lot alike.”

“That’s not a disguise quirk?!” Izuku squeaked. “That’s just his face?”

“That’s, um, that’s what I thought too,” Izuku told Toshinori.

Somehow, it sounded like a lie.

First chuckled at his shock, but then turned more serious. “Ninth,” he addressed him directly, “you’ve met my brother before. Some of us have already chosen to ignore that, because you have a hero’s heart, but - what exactly did you do? To have him treat you this well?”

Izuku winced. He’d never told anyone about the specifics of that time, for a reason. But the Vestiges would have to know, eventually, wouldn’t they? So he braced himself, and opened his mouth to tell the tale-

“FLASHBACK, FLASHBACK!” Kaminari cheered-

“But that would be too easy,” Ashido chimed in, and sure enough-

There came a low rumbling like distant thunder, and the holders turned as one in the direction of a door that had appeared behind them - or perhaps it had always been there. Fifth swore, sending Blackwhip out to push against it, and Fourth and Second joined him, throwing their full bodyweights against it. There was fear on Nana’s face, and dawning anger on First’s - but for all their effort, the knob was turning, the door was opening, to admit a looming, black shape, limned in red.

Toshinori shivered involuntarily. Fuck, All For One was so creepy.

“You bastard,” Nana hissed, stepping in front of Izuku to hide him. “You’re not welcome here! Get out!”

“We’ll fight you again if we have to,” someone shouted, to general agreement, and the room began to light up with a rainbow of lightning static.

But the shadow ignored them. Its glowing red eyes stared straight ahead, at Izuku’s. “Akatani Mikumo,” it greeted him, downright warm. “It is a pleasure to meet you again.” A broad hand extended in his direction - but didn’t cross the threshold, held at bay by the Vestiges’ power.

There it was again, the name. Why did it sound so familiar? Toshinori pulled out his phone again, intending to run a general internet search, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the unfolding action just yet.

Izuku stepped forward, toward the door. The vestiges grabbed at him to pull him back, cries of alarm and anger filling his ears, but they were mere shadow and vapor, lights in the mist - they could not truly stop him, either, as he smiled at the shadow and stepped outside.

“The pleasure,” he returned, reaching out for the offered hand, “is all mine-”

Back in the clearing, All For One’s view of Midoriya showed the boy brightening. A wave like electricity, starting in his head, rushing down to his hands. Another. A third, with less time between it and the next.

When the moment came, it was - undramatic, Hisashi decided. There should have been more of a sign, right? A flare of light, a blast of air, a cold wind, a crash of thunder, an eldritch resonant ringing from all directions heralding the end of the world-

Something.

But then, his Izu always was the expedient type. So Hisashi, with his quirk-sense, was the only witness to the arrival of singularity: One For All, meet-

Suddenly, all lights shining in other-Midoriya went dark. And then, descending from the crown of his head, the glow returned-

-and it was red.

“-All For One.”

“Whoa-!!”

“Okay, that was so cinematic I got chills-”

“What now, though, do you think? If he’s gotten such a big power-up, will there be fight scenes later?”

Above the excited murmuring of the audience, there rose a faint beeping which Toshinori swiftly located: Izuku’s phone. “C-can I request another intermission?” his successor asked, getting up from his seat. “I’m actually on call - I should be back in a couple of minutes though-”

“Of course,” nodded Looking-Glass, flipping the switch for the lights. People got up to stretch their legs, or to get second helpings at the buffet tables; Toshinori looked around the room and caught Aizawa’s eye. The three of them - Toshinori, Aizawa, and Present Mic - regrouped in a corner of the room, clustered around Toshinori’s phone, and the results of the internet search he had finally run for the name ‘Akatani Mikumo’.