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Chapter Text

"..." Izuku Midoriya was holding his breath now, keeping his bandaged arms as relaxed as possible despite being really nervous as he was now listening to how Eraserhead was going through the results of the quirk assertion test that he forced everyone to do in the first day of class on U.A.

"You are the last... Midoriya." Eraserhead said as he looked at Izuku, who was far too skittish to even be allowed in the hero course. That made him question why Nezu allowed someone who looked like he would have a panic attack in a couple of seconds to be in the hero course even if he managed an impressive score during the exam despite looking so reluctant to be there. Nezu, for the first time in a long time, was really insistent on the fact that he needed to read that kid's file over using his usual methods to get a read on his students, but Eraserhead didn't bother to do that as he trusted his instincts.

"..." Izuku didn't bother to respond as the only thing he did was to stare at Eraserhead with his dull green eyes with black sclera that enerved people. If Eraserhead was willing to let his emotions rule him now, he would feel like he was kicking a puppy as he saw the expression of subdued horror on his face.

"Pack your things Midoriya. You are expelled..." But Eraserhead believed that there was no way for Izuku to be a hero considering how he looked, so he decided to forgo his logical ruse to actually kick that kid who would definitely had the biggest chance to get himself killed in the field if he was allowed to be on the field as a hero and then would use that open spot in the class to get his personal apprentice in his class.

Izuku simply walked away as he heard how Bakugo loudly mocked and belittled him as he walked away from the group and got out of the sight of the students of class 1-A and Eraserhead, who believed that he was actually doing a favor to Izuku by putting that black mark in his record by expelling him of U.A. as he honestly believed that Izuku was the kind of person that would easily die on the field no matter what kind of effort was put into preparing him to be a hero.

But actions had consequences...and Eraserhead's decision to ignore Nezu's specific orders this time would make ripples in how things were supposed to be...

"..." Eraserhead was now in Nezu's office after the end of the first day as Nezu called for him to have a chat about the events of the day. Eraserhead fully erased Izuku's memory of his mind as he had already done what he had to be done from his point of view and refused to deal with the issue any further.

"Did you think that it was a simple suggestion for you to read Midoriya's file despite the fact that I was quite willing to repeat myself about the fact that you should have read the damn thing before jumping the gun, Eraserhead?" Nezu said with such hostility that it caught Eraserhead by surprise.

"What is going on? And why are you getting so worked up by that kid? He looked like he would be a liability on the field, so I got him out of the hero course before he would get himself killed...." Eraserhead said in a defensive way, taken aback by the fact that Nezu was actively fighting against one of his decisions in such an open way.

"Why I am getting so worked up by what you did to Midoriya? That is simple to answer, he was in the hero course for more...therapeutic reasons that now I will make you understand before I make the decision to fire you for this massive blunder." Nezu said and then he pulled in his table a massive binder that contained Izuku's files. The size of said binder should have clued Eraserhead in that there was something going on with Izuku that Eraserhead should have known before he decided to expel Izuku.

"This is ridicu..." Eraserhead tried to say, but Nezu shot him an intense glare and decided to bring the big guns in order to get him to comply.

"You are going to read that file, and you are going to do it in front of me, unless you want your dearest personal student's dreams of being a hero to crumble in front of him on the spot. And I am not bluffing here." Nezu said and then he showed the expulsion papers that Nezu had filled in in order to not only expel Shinso Hitoshi from U.A., but also to put a black mark in his file that would be akin to a death sentence for him.

"You can't do th....!" Eraserhead tried to say as he got up from his chair to protest, but Nezu had none of it.

"Sit the fuck down and read those papers now, Eraserhead. Before you waste whatever little amount of kindness that you are receiving right now." Nezu's threat was effective enough to get Eraserhead to comply.

Eraserhead sat down on the chair and then he opened that binder in order to read those damned files that were now putting a literal Sword of Damocles on top of his head. Eraserhead was then surprised to see that there were things like a police investigation about the fact that he was kidnapped at the age of five and went missing for two years before he was found and how...

"...!" Eraserhead's blood turned cold as he saw multiple photographs of Izuku's body...or better said, about how his forearms, and his eyes weren't natural at all, and other small details that made the stoic and uncaring hero realize that he may had messed this up.

"Are seeing the photos of Izuku's body now? Those photos were taken after he was rescued, and let me tell you...that kid had endured inhuman experimentation for two years that had ended with his arms and eyes being replaced by those black forearms that he keeps constantly covered by those bandages and those green eyes with black sclera that he can't hide from people...and that is not the only thing that was done to him..." Nezu said as he saw Eraserhead's face of pure shock as he was going through Izuku's medical history.

"This is... impossible! How can a kid have multiple quirk factors inside his body!?" Eraserhead said as he continued reading Izuku's medical history. Said medical history showed that he had been declared quirkless at the age of four...only to then have multiple quirk factors inside his body that showed that Izuku somehow possessed more than one quirk now.

"Whoever did those cruel experiments that had permanently deformed and scarred his body also did the impossible as far as we know and also implanted on Midoriya multiple quirks...a thing that some would consider a scientific breakthrough if it didn't come at the cost of such inhuman actions..." Nezu said. The mammal had a sadistic streak against humans in a way as he was cruelly experimented on because of being an animal with a quirk and had little love for people. But despite said hangups with humanity, Nezu was fully capable of showing compassion and understanding to people if they had been put in a similar situation as him, and since Izuku had been clearly experimented on, then Nezu was more emotional than he was used to be in his life as he was fully capable of putting himself on Izuku's shoes.

"I..." Eraserhead was at a loss for words now.

"It doesn't matter what you have to say now about the situation. The damage is already down, and while I managed to salvage the situation with Midoriya by transferring him to class 1-B. This is the last straw for me that showed me that giving you those privileges in order to work here had been a mistake." Nezu said. There was a lot that Nezu wanted to say to Eraserhead about how his teaching "methods" or the lack of them had to be a thorn in his side that forced him to do a massive amount of damage control to mitigate the potential damage that his reckless usage of his expulsion privilege could have caused to all those kids that he had expelled in the past and that the only thing that prevented him from firing him was that both Midnight and Present Mic told him that they would quit if he fired him. But after this stunt of his, Nezu was done with Eraserhead's antics and decided that if he was that willing to cast Izuku aside without even bothering to check those files that Nezu specifically told him to check before starting his first class of this school year, then he wasn't going to be involved at all in case that he showed some remorse after Nezu forced him to read those papers.

Nezu told Eraserhead that he not only had lost all those privileges that he had to expel people at will, but also that he was going to get fired from U.A. unless he showed that he was competent at his job. Nezu also told him that he had avoided being fired for his lack of professionalism multiple times because both Midnight and Present Mic put their careers on the line for him and were willing to leave U.A. if he fired him, but now said threats were useless because Nezu was willing to find substitutes for the three of them over dealing with their antics for one more year and that his personal student would only put a foot in the hero course if he earned that privilege through hard work and not because Eraserhead wanted him to be there even if he failed the entrance exam.

Nezu should have put Izuku from the beginning in class 1-B as he knew that Vlad King was far more suited for the task of helping Izuku in his particular situation despite lacking the quirk that made Eraserhead the most logical choice for that task that was now his hands, but he still wanted to give one chance to Eraserhead to prove that he was a good teacher despite his harsh and cruel methods. That was a mistake that he wasn't going to commit anymore.

"..." Izuku was taking a deep breath after he had taken a shower before he went back to U.A. the next day after the whole being expelled by Eraserhead. He was looking at the mirror as he was drying his body with a towel and was forced to see all those scars that he had on his body that were the testament to what that man did to him in order to create "A weapon to kill All Might" if he took those words at face value.

The surgery scars on his arms, legs, chest, and head that hadn't fully faded away with time were proof that he had endured a hell on earth that would have broken the spirit of that bastard of a childhood friend that Bakugo was to him, and while he went to therapy multiple times in order to deal with the traumatic event that turned him into the monster that he was now, the school life that he endured before his parents decided to move to a different place in which Bakugo wasn't able to harm him physically or emotionally still left a bitter taste on his mouth and made him feel weak in the knees and to feel powerless and hopeless the moment that he had to share the same space with Bakugo.

Bakugo lacked any sort of empathy or kindness for others in his heart as Bakugo not only blamed Izuku for being kidnaped even though he was a powerless kid in those moments, but Bakugo decided that since Izuku looked now like a monster with those scars, that he was a villain in the making and that it was his duty to stop him before Izuku could harm others. Those words were what completely destroyed the relationship between their families as his parents were upset at Bakugo's deranged words while Bakugo's parents tried to find excuses to make those things to be more acceptable despite the fact that Bakugo had crossed a line in those moments that showed that he was unfit to even think of being a hero. Those years being apart from each other didn't make Bakugo grow up a heart of something like that as he was that eager to rub in Izuku's face that he was a villain unworthy of drawing breath after Eraserhead kicked him out of the hero course.

Izuku didn't had any desire to be a hero. The only reason that he bothered to go to U.A despite his lack of faith in the hero system was that he knew Nezu for a long time as he was the hero who found him after he somehow managed to escape his captivity. Nezu somehow felt attached to him after it was shown that Izuku had been heavily experimented upon and it was Nezu the hero that helped his family to find the kind of help that Izuku needed to deal with whatever mental issues that could have appeared after those long years of captivity and experimentation.

Izuku told Nezu point-blank that he had no faith in the heroes anymore as no hero came to his rescue as he was being heavily experimented off as he had his forearms, his eyes, and his legs taken away and replaced with that "Nomufied" thing that was thrown around by that old man that experimented on him during two years, those body parts that weren't fully his were able to grow up as he grew older and in a way adapted to his body despite the fact that they were fully black aside from his nails that were red and the color of his eyes that was still green.

His memories about those times were quite hazy and there were a lot of holes in his memories from those days that prevented him from fully recalling what happened to him, but that didn't stop Izuku from wanting to find the man who did this to him in order to make him pay for all the pain and suffering that he had inflicted upon him and his family.

He told Nezu that and Nezu tried to convince him that he should try to become a hero in order to stop that man from doing to others what he did to him over giving into his anger, but Izuku wanted to rip that bastard apart with his hands for what he did to him and he only relented because Izuku considered that being a hero would help him to archive his goals.

His younger self before being experimented on would have been thrilled at the fact that he was now in U.A.'s hero course and that he had a quirk, or multiple quirks that he can't remember at all to be more precise, and would have considered the emotional anguish and occasional nightmares that plagued his mind a worthy trade, but that boy died a long and painful death in that operation table in that underground lab and what remained was a broken shell of a boy who was mad at the world for the injustice that he had endured and barely holding back thanks to the efforts of his parents and all the therapist that he visited in order to deal with his issues.

He may had multiple quirks in his body and no way to use them as his mind is unable to even know how to use them even if he was sure that he was passively using some of those quirks and had little desire to find out what he could do unless they benefited him in his quest for revenge.

Izuku was a broken person after all that he had endured up to this point, and while part of said unbalanced mental state could be attributed to being an angsty teenager who had gone through a genuine hellish experience and had trouble coping with it. Did that mean that he was doomed to be broken until the end of his life...or there was hope for someone who appeared to have lost all hope for this world?

Chapter Text

"..." Vlad King was in the cafeteria now, thinking about how the meeting between Izuku and his students had gone, and Vlad King was able to see that Izuku was quite wary of all of them at this moment.

Nezu informed him about how Izuku was homeschooled after he returned to his family, and it was clear that his social skills were quite lacking as his first meeting with his new class ended up being a tense moment despite Izuku's calm demeanor in class.

He told Neito Monoma to never touch him unless he wanted to suffer, and while Izuku had to explain that it wasn't a threat but a warning for Monoma not to use his quirk on him because he could suffer a severe backlash if he tried to copy whatever quirk was inside of him, the fact that Izuku didn't bother at all with trying to word said statement in a more friendly way the first time was a cause of concern.

The first heroic foundation class with All Might was one that put everyone on edge as Izuku was glaring at All Might with such hatred in his eyes that it wouldn't surprise Vlad King at all if he suddenly started to fire laser beams from his eyes with that face that he put when he saw the hero entering the observation area.

All Might was informed about the reason for Izuku's visceral reaction at seeing him so All Might was willing to not hold it against Izuku as the reason for those experiments that he endured was because a mad scientist wanted to kill him and decided to mutilate and modify Izuku for that reason, but that left the students of class 1-B to be confused and concerned at the fact that Izuku was acting like that after seeing the symbol of peace.

Izuku's backstory and reasons for his behavior were something that was only known by the faculty because Nezu considered that they should be warned about his situation to not draw the wrong conclusions, but said backstory was something that couldn't be shared with the students as it contained some sensitive information that Izuku refused to share with people that he considered that didn't need to know.

That left Vlad King with a genuinely damaged person who unfortunately was so broken that his mere presence in the class caused a lot of discomfort with his peers despite the fact that he didn't project his issues into others as an excuse to do something villainous against them as he just spent his time in class minding his own business.

Vlad King knew that despite this first impression that could make some people think that Izuku was a lost cause, there was hope for Izuku and the only thing he needed to do was to give him time and space in order to allow him to slowly to open himself to people of his age in a way that didn't put the others on edge.

That would require some time and some balancing with the needs of the other students in his class for a while to allow the class to grow an at even pace, but that was Vlad King's job and that is what he was going to do in order to show Nezu that the faith that he put on him when he told him that he left Izuku at his care wasn't misplaced.

He just hoped that Izuku was able to open himself to others as soon as possible for the sake of everyone involved.

The week went on in a blur as Izuku stayed in the background of the class in order to not bother the others as Izuku had given up a long time ago on the idea of being around normal people and preferred to be left alone to mind his own business over interacting with those that were supposed to be his classmates as he was quite aware that his own behavior and looks always made people to feel uncomfortable.

Izuku had talked with some therapists about his own preconceived notions and they had told him time and time again that his defeatist attitude to that issue only served to reinforce his own confirmation bias to prevent him from making any real change in that uncomfortable issue that drove him to seek to be alone over being with others, but it was difficult for Izuku to open himself to others as he felt quite disgusted with his appearance now and refused to show his arms and legs to people even if he could lie to people to say that he had a mutant quirk that made him look like this because he refused to downplay his own suffering like that.

He was empathetic enough to the plight that his presence imposed on his classmates and was bothered in a way by the fact that he was putting them all on edge by just being there with them, but there was nothing that he could do about it aside from staying away from them during any class that wasn't the first hour of the day in order to give them a break.

Vlad King and Nezu tried to talk to him about what he did in order to convince him to not give up like that, but Izuku refused to relent and spent his school hours in one of the training areas that wasn't occupied by other hero classes in order to not bother more people that he already was bothering by just being there.

Izuku wasn't a hero and there was no thought in his mind that he was going to become one here as what he truly wanted was revenge and was honest about it, but he still had some conscience despite being that jaded by the world and felt quite disgusted with himself because the reasons that he was there.

He felt that he was polluting the air of this place just by being there as his reason to be in U.A. weren't heroic at all, and the fact that someone as repulsive and vile as Bakugo was allowed to be there as well didn't put his mind at ease.

Izuku was a complicated person and all his issues didn't make his situation easier at all, but he would have to put his issues on a second plane for today as he was going to attend the USJ in order to do a joint training session with the students of the class that he had being kicked out on the first day.

Nezu informed him that Bakugo had been warned that he would be expelled on the spot if he tried to attack Izuku without provocation as he did in the quirk assertion test before Eraserhead stepped in to stop him, and while the idea of being near Bakugo made his skin crawl with disgust. Izuku decided to comply this time with that request.

He picked up his backpack that he would take with him to the USJ and made sure to pack some extra bandages just in case he needed it. Those bandages were nothing special and worked more like a clutch that he used in the past in order to not have a panic attack in case he saw his arms again, and while they weren't needed anymore, Izuku still preferred to have them with him for some extra peace of mind.

A week in a school after years of being homeschooled was an experience that Izuku was still getting accustomed to, and with all things considered, the change of scenery from being cooped up in his room to seeing a lot of new things in U.A. was appreciated, but there was always that sense of wariness as Izuku never felt truly safe. The memory of that black mist that enveloped him as he was walking home from the mountain after an encounter in the river with Bakugo was something that would never leave his mind as it was the beginning of what was his hell on earth for two years.

"..." The flow of time slowed down for Izuku as he saw how that damned black mist that became part of his nightmares appeared out of nowhere in the main plaza of the USJ.

His mind was hyper-focused on the words that those villains were talking about, and while he was fighting the fear that was overwhelming his mind, there was one thing that snapped him out of that trance.

"Nomu..." Izuku muttered as the black-skinned abomination that the villains had brought with them was mentioned, and that brought to his mind some painful memories that his mind had been repressing after he escaped from that captivity.

A girl from his class saw how Izuku was covering his face with his hand as he had a pained expression on his face was the only one who paid attention to him as the others saw how Bakugo recklessly charged at the villains with the intention to kill them...only for a black portal made of mist to absorb one of Bakugo's overextended arm in order to redirect the incoming explosion on Bakugo's face.

"Ahhh!" Bakugo shouted as his own overcharged explosion consumed his whole body and left him as a charred, but barely alive hero student who now was lying on the ground and was missing an arm as said explosion forcefully dispelled the portal that redirected said arm and that caused said arm to be severed when the portal was unable to be maintained.

Then, all hell broke loose as the villain made of mist managed to create a massive amount of mist that engulfed almost everyone that was there aside from the teachers and the injured Thirteen that Izuku was able to see now as his mind was now starting to pay attention to his surroundings and then his mind went blank when that black mist engulfed his body...

The only thing that Izuku could hear at the moment was the sound of his own heart beating inside his chest like crazy...and if he didn't knew any better, he would say that said heart was also nomufied, but the medical checkups that he received on a hero hospital that were overseen by Nezu showed that at least his internal organs were still his despite the heavy modification that all his body had received.

The unpleasant feeling of being enveloped by that black mist that marked the brutal end of his childhood alongside the events that had transpired minutes ago was not doing any favors to his mental state and the smell of burning things around him and the sudden increase in the carbon monoxide level in the area wasn't making his situation even better.

"Midoriya! Midoriya!" He then felt that someone was trying to shake him and then he started to pay attention to his new surroundings.

"...This isn't good." That was the only thing he could say. He was now in an alleyway inside a city that was on fire and his only company was that short brunette from his class and that green-haired girl from class 1-A that looked like the high temperature of this place was starting to do a number on her.

"We need to get out of here and ask for help!" That brunette said. Her name was Kinoko Komori, and while Izuku had barely interacted with them after his first day in class, he considered that it would be polite to at least remember their names.

"Yeah...that girl from class 1-A is not having a good time by the looks of it." Izuku said. That girl was Tsuyu Asui, and her quirk was named Frog. Her quirk gave her body some of the traits that a frog had and that also meant that she shared their weaknesses as well, and considering how pale and exhausted she looked right now, then the high temperatures of this place weren't doing her any good.

"But what can we do? We are straddled in the middle of the conflagration zone while being surrounded by villains. My quirk is useless in this place and hers is not doing her any favors..." Kinoko said. Izuku could see the sorrow and desolation in her face as it was clear that the odds were stacked against them.

"..." Izuku knew what he had to do to survive. He had to make use of all those quirks that had been forced upon him in order to survive this villain attack, and while he had actively refused to use any of those quirks of his out of distaste for what they represented and the fact that he doesn't fully know about how many quirks were shoved into him. Izuku had promised to himself that he wouldn't hesitate to do what he must in order to survive, and if that meant using those things that he hated the most...then so be it. He could throw a fit about being forced to do this to survive later after he was sure that he had survived this mess.

"Don't ask any questions and just follow me, Komori. I will get us out of here, I promise you that." Izuku said after he made up his mind. He picked up the barely conscious Asui and carried her on his back while Komori followed his instructions as they both navigated this burning city in order to find the exit of the conflagration area.

That task would sound difficult considering the fact that this was the first time that Izuku was in this place and he wasn't in a situation that allowed him to take this easily, but Izuku hoped that Echolocation and Mental Map would help him to find a way from this hell like they did all those years ago.

Chapter Text

"...What makes this boy so XXXXX off...?"

"...He wasn't XXXXX..."

"...To XXXXX any..."

"...but sadly, XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX had been..."

"...could we XXXXX...?"

"...not, that damaged XXXXX XXXXX it unstable..."

Izuku's mind was now working overtime with the usage of both Echolocation and Mental Map in order to get Komori, Asui, and himself out of this place, and the mere use of a quirk made some of the memories that he had been suppressing in the past to resurface in his mind.

Even when he was strapped down to an operation table and sedated as he was experimented on, Izuku was able to hear things that happened close to him, a range that expanded as some of those modifications improved his hearing before they forced on him a quirk that empowered his hearing capabilities in order to make better use of Echolocation, a shame that he was heavily sedated in those moments so he was impaired in those moments.

"Just a little longer..." The voice of Kinoko snaped Izuku from his train of thought in those moments and he mentally kicked himself as he knew that now was not the time to lose himself in his own trauma when lives were on the line.

Kinoko was closely following Izuku as they navigated inside this broken and desolate fake city that was in flames and Kinoko was surprised to see that the route that Izuku was taking was one in which there was no villain waiting for them.

"15 unknown presence are in this place aside from us 3..." Kinoko remembered those words that Izuku spoke as he carried Asui in his back and she thought that maybe that was what his quirk could do. Izuku revealed to them that Monoma would suffer a lot of pain should he try to copy his quirk, but he said nothing about what said quirk could do.

"We are close to the exit...but there is a problem." Izuku said as they were about to reach the end of one alleyway that was taking them to the exit of the conflagration zone if what Izuku said was right.

"What is it?" Kinoko asked as she saw how Izuku stopped in his tracks and let Asui on the ground.

"There is one person that is now reaching the exit and he is positioned in a way that it looks like they are mounting guard...so here is a plan." Izuku said to Kinoko before telling her what he had in mind.

"I will rush in first in order to draw the attention of that villain or whatever person is in the way, and then you carry Asui to the outside of this place. Once you are outside, avoid the main plaza and try to find a way to revitalize Asui. She is still alive, but barely hanging by a thread, and unless you drop her into a pool of water or something, she is going to be out of commission for a while and may take a long time for her to recover..." Izuku said. Kinoko had to admit that Izuku had a point and as much as she was worried for Vlad King and the others, the life of Asui was now in her hands and she needed to find a way to save her before it was too late.

"I will try to make this quick so I can catch up with you two as fast as possible, but be ready to run as far as you can" Izuku said after he saw that Kinoko nodded at his words and then he helped her to carry Asui on her back before he decided to break into a sprint in order to reach whatever person was blocking the exit to allow the other two to escape.

"Good luck...Midoriya." Kinoko Muttered as she saw how Izuku was starting to get out of the alleyway, she was giving Izuku some time before she decided to run as well after she heard his signal.

"Get the fuck out of my way!" Izuku shouted hard enough for Kinoko to hear and she then broke into a sprint in order to get out of this place.

She ran as fast as she could while carrying the barely conscious Asui and she saw that Izuku was now locked in combat with a guy with a black suit, sunglasses and a pair of knives.

Kinoko felt horrible as she was leaving someone like Izuku behind in order to save Asui, and even if she knew that Izuku was the one who told her to run with Asui to save her life, she felt like a failure because she was unable to even help in this situation aside from getting Asui out of this place.

She reached the exit near this side of the conflagration zone, and the fresh air that reached her skin was a welcome change in this situation even though they were all still in danger, as she could hear people fighting in the central plaza and she tried to see if there was something that could help to help Asui to recover more quickly from the near-death experience that she had endured in the conflagration zone thanks to her quirk making said zone a death trap for her in all but name.

She turned her gaze one last time to the conflagration zone as she hoped Izuku would be safe from harm despite the situation and that he would be able to return to their side as fast as he could before she moved away from the area in a hurry.

"That kid is a monster!" The villain that was guarding the exit that Kinoko took said. He was caught by surprise by Izuku coming out of nowhere and trying to crush his skull with his fist and the only reason that said villain survived was because he ran away in terror the moment that he saw Izuku's fist seconds before it reached his head.

That villain was named Sharp Blade, and he was almost scared after he saw the sheer level of endurance that Izuku had shown as he tanked blows from himself and the few villains that came to support him and looked like they were nothing to him.

The slices that he managed to sneak to Izuku's bandaged arms with his knives, whose sharpness had been increased tenfold thanks to his quirk, didn't manage to sever those limbs at all, and the attempts of the others to put him down were met with failure after failure that ended with Izuku being covered in his own blood while still coming back for more.

"We had shot him, stabbed him, burned him, and even tried to drop a whole building on top of him, but that freak just can't stand down at all..." A villain with four arms that were covered with iron scales said. He had punched Izuku in the head with the intention of crushing his skull, but he had broken one of his fists the moment his knuckles made contact with his forehead and had to switch tactics.

"..." Izuku stood there as those villains were looking at him with clear fear in their eyes. His bandages and a larger amount of his pants had been burned by those flames, and that revealed his black arms and legs to those villains, the only saving grace was that what remained from his pants covered his genitals so he wasn't fully naked.

His mind was processing all the information that he had obtained about their quirks thanks to the resurfacing of one of the quirks that he was actively blocking out from his mind that reacted to the usage of multiple quirks to hurt him.

"To become not only the All Might Killer, but the perfect hero killer. He needs to be capable of fully adapting to his foes' quirks and be able to quickly counter them to deprive them of their strongest assets..." The voice of that old man echoed in his mind as he remembered now some other quirks that were forced into his body with the intent to become someone that would kill All Might or any hero that stood in their way if luck didn't smile upon him that day that he managed to escape.

All the hits he took, all the times that they attacked him with the intent of killing him when they used their quirks had only increased the amount of tools that Izuku had at his disposal to fight back, and once his mind had managed to process all that information despite Izuku's reluctance to do that, Izuku decided that might as well fight fire with fire now that there was no way out of this situation unless a miracle came from the heavens to save him.

"Turnabout is fair play..." Izuku said as he then decided to use said new information to upgrade his arms and legs by allowing for iron scales to instantaneously grow around them in order to increase both his offensive and defensive power at the same time.

"What the fuck!?" The villain with four arms said as he saw how Izuku's arms and legs were starting to grow iron scales that were similar to those that covered his own body.

"You were so right to call me a monster..." Izuku said as he rushed to Sharp Blade. Sharp Blade was caught by surprise by that sudden burst of speed and then Izuku managed to deliver a blow to his combat suit with his nails, which somehow managed to cut through the reinforced combat suit that was meant to stand even the slashing damage of his own knives when he used his quirk on them.

The sound of said suit being shredded by Izuku's nails, which now were way sharper than before reached the ears of the villains that were surrounding Izuku. Sharp Blade then fell to the ground and covered his barely naked stomach, which was bleeding a little as Izuku's nails managed to reach his skin despite all the protection that he wore before Izuku's nails went through it.

"I don't want to do this...but if you threaten my life, then I will not hesitate to use lethal force to survive if I must...So please, don't make me do this. Don't push me into taking your lives away..." Izuku said, the passional yet eerily tone of voice that he had completely enerved the villains, and that combined with the previous show of resilience after they attacked him made the villains stand down as they realized that they had bitten way more than they could chew and they were scared enough to surrender when the chance was given to them.

The villains surrendered in mass and Izuku told them that it would be for the best to not cause trouble in case the police or another hero came to detain them before he walked away in order to meet up with Komori and Asui.

Izuku was able to manage all the emotional damage that he was enduring as he was forced to use those powers that were forced on him under the grounds that it was that or dying, but he knew that he wasn't going to have a great time once the danger had passed.

He just hoped that he could have something to fully take his mind off of this mess after all of this was over...

Tomura Shigaraki was many things, a villain, a gamer, and someone with an itch to destroy everything, but a patient man was not. So he was happy when he saw that All Might quickly came out to the fray a couple of minutes after the kids were scattered through the USJ.

The reason for All Might to come far sooner than expected was because of the GPS signal of Izuku's phone that Nezu was constantly tracking, a compromise that Izuku reached with the principal in order to let him be away from his classmates while still inside U.A., suddenly went dark when one of the villains that Shigaraki bought managed to jam all form of communication with the outside, and considering Izuku's past, Nezu saw fit to cut his conversation with All Might short and told him to go as fast as he could to the USJ because he knew that Izuku won't actively turn the signal off and that could mean that something was going on in the USJ.

Nezu's paranoia was rewarded by having All Might reach the USJ in time to give some critical assistance to Vlad King and Eraserhead to fully dispatch those low-level villains that were surrounding them and now Tomura Shigaraki was getting what he wanted, but not in the way that he wanted for things to go.

The nomu that was named the All Might Killer was just a living and walking punchbag that could fight back against All Might colossal might, and without any kind of support from Kurogiri, who was dealing with Vlad King and Eraserhead while protecting Shigaraki, the nomu was just a mindless brute that could only punch things and endure All Might attacks.

Kurogiri was a nomu, a high-end one to be more precise and he was created and mentally conditioned to be Tomura's primary caretaker and protector, and considering the situation, he had no choice but to create a portal in a moment when the heroes were distracted after they managed to restrain Shigaraki and managed to sneak Shigaraki out of the USJ and warped him to the bar in Yokohama that was their hideout.

Kurogiri then was incapacitated on the spot and now the only thing that continued to be able to fight from the League of Villains was the Nomu. Eraserhead told Vlad King that he should try to go to rescue the kids as he kept Kurogiri restrained in case he would recover his conscience and he complied with that subjestion as he was worried about the kids' safety.

Vlad King moved first to the Conflagration zone and saw that Kinoko Komori was near the water of the Flood zone, holding an unconscious Tsuyu Asui above her waist to let her be partially submerged in the water.

"Komori! Are you okay?" Vlad King asked as he reached her position. Kinoko almost panicked a little as she heard Vlad King's voice and almost let Asui go.

"Yeah...but Midoriya is still..." Kinoko tried to say, but then she heard the footsteps from someone who was reaching their location, and that made Vlad King and Kinoko see who it was.

"You two...are... all right..." Izuku said. He was breathing heavily right now as he was feeling quite uncomfortable at the moment with not only having his arms and legs uncovered, but also by the additional weight that they had gained after those iron scales grew in them.

"Midoriya..." Vlad King said with clear sadness in his voice. He read about how Izuku had a lot of issues with having his arms uncovered, and to see that he was now showing them while being covered in blood meant that he had gone through a nasty situation because he ended up getting involved in this joint training situation.

Kinoko for her part was horrified to see how badly Izuku was looking now. Seeing his exhausted face while being covered in blood alongside those black arms and legs of his was making Kinoko feel a lot of things at the moment about Izuku's situation, and compassion and pity were the strongest emotions that were running through her mind.

"How are things...going?" Izuku said, willfully ignoring the looks of pity and sadness that both Kinoko and Vlad King were throwing at him in order to focus on the situation at hand.

"All Might had come and is facing the Nomu while Eraserhead is keeping one of the leaders of the LOV under wraps...Shigaraki was warped away by Kurogiri so now we are waiting for the reinforcements to appear..." Vlad King said.

"I see..." That was the only thing that Izuku said after hearing Vlad King's words. There was a lot that Izuku needed to think about right now about the situation and he decided to see how things would play out between All Might and the supposed All Might killer as the idea of that abomination being the finished product of what scientists wanted to turn him into was something that left him concerned.

After all, if that All Might killer was unable to kill All Might at all, then what did that scientist have in mind when he constantly experimented on him in order to turn him into an All Might killer?

Chapter Text

"Shigaraki? What is going on? And where is Kurogiri?" A TV in that bar in which Shigaraki and Kurogiri were hiding turned on its own and a male voice came from it.

"Sensei! The plan was a bust! All Might wasn't there when we were there and spread out the kids through the USJ, but he came a couple of minutes later and left me, Kurogiri and the nomu against All Might and two other teachers that turned the tables on us! Kurogiri opened a portal when I was captured and sent me here, but he was unable to escape..." Shigaraki said to the TV. The voice that came through the TV was processing the information that Shigaraki had shared with him and was thinking about how this little plan to kick-start Shigaraki's development had backfired in the worst possible way.

"I see..." That was the only thing that Sensei could say about how things had turned out. This plan hinged on the fact that Shigaraki was going to fail anyway because he underestimated the heroes and this could serve as a lesson for him, but this level of failure wasn't expected a lot and there was little to be done now as Sensei refused to play his hand that early in order to rescue Kurogiri.

Sensei then talked with Shigaraki about the situation in order to calm him down as he was getting ready to make some calls to get a replacement for Kurogiri ready to take care of Shigaraki. The loss of Kurogiri and his quirk would be a heavy loss, but a nomu was at the end of the day a disposable pawn to be discarded when it ran out of use, and as long as Kurogiri's loss ended up with a net positive on his plans, then it would be an acceptable loss.

Kurogiri's status as a high-end nomu made him a rarity in comparison to the other nomus that were created as his capability to talk and have a working brain was a thing that separated him from the rest of nomus that were braindead zombies that followed orders and had little to no autonomy at all. He was important because of his role in his plans, but that didn't mean that he was irreplaceable at all. For that reason, the neck brace that Kurogiri always had with him was outfitted with a potent bomb that would destroy his body and everything that was in a really short range out of him in order to dispose of him in case he ended up compromised.

That level of security was something that Sensei and his main collaborator in the creation of nomus learned the hard way when their most valuable test subject, a quirkless child that held near infinite potential before they inadvertently ruined him with all the experiments that they made on him, escaped their grasp by faking his death and then escaping from the storage area that he was taken to allow the doctor to gather the supplies needed to make a full nomu out of him. They were so secure in the fact that said kid had no escape that they didn't bother to prepare anything in case he escaped their clutches, and that oversight was their greatest mistake that had delayed their plans for a long time.

Now, Sensei would use one of his quirks to try to gather information from a distance about Kurogiri and then wait for the perfect moment to hit the kill switch on Kurogiri in order to cause the maximum amount of damage to the heroes to even the score.

Sensei was a petty man, and if there was one thing that he refused to do, was that he wasn't going to let the heroes have an easy and painless victory if he could do something about it...just ask All Might about how their last fight went before the hero believed that he got rid of him for good.

"..." Midoriya was now focusing on the fight between the Nomu and All Might as Vlad King moved to another area in order to see if he could help the students that were trapped there.

Those who were in the flood area managed to easily escape from the villain's attack thanks to a combination of students who managed to combine their quirks and capabilities in a way that deprived the villains that were in the water of their greatest strengths, but it was Ibara Shiozaki that carried the whole team thanks to her quirk, that managed to capture and restrain the villains while they were underwater while the others were more for moral support considering the situation.

"Asui!" The voice of a girl from class 1-A reached Izuku's ears, but he was focused on the fight to look who she was.

"Oh my god!"

"Is that why he wears those bandages all the time!?"

"Poor thing..."

And the comments that Izuku knew would happen once people saw what his clothes and bandages covered came, and while Izuku could feel upset at them, he already made peace with them a long time ago and was aware that said kind of reaction was something that was unavoidable no matter what so he shouldn't hold it against them.

"This isn't good..." Izuku said as the fight continued. Maybe it was the fact that a sight-based quirk that Izuku had suppressed in the past through sheer willpower like he did with others was now returning to the surface as he was in need of it, but it was clear from what he saw that this battle of attrition between All Might and the Nomu wasn't going on All Might's favor.

"What!? That can be possible! This is All Might we talking about, Midoriya." a classmate of his from class 1-B, the one with a bandana, said to him.

"...All Might is quickly running out of steam and that creature's ability to take All Might's blows with ease is not making the hero any favors." Izuku said. He was seeing the battle through a different lens than the others, as said sight-based quirk that was now fully activated was scanning both All Might and the Nomu in order to gather information about them, and what he was getting from All Might was concerning.

"But why is that thing able to withstand All Might's hits with ease?" Ibara said. She saw multiple scars around his body and that made her feel pity for her tormented classmate's soul.

"That creature has a quirk that allows it to reduce the effectiveness of physical blows by absorbing the shocks produced by them. All Might's power is great, but it's useless against that creature. It's like if you were playing a Shin Megami Tensei game and ordered a demon with only physical attacks to attack a boss that can absorb physical damage, an exercise on futility..." Izuku said. The reference to an obscure RPG game that was overshadowed by its more popular spin-off in this day and age flew above the heads of some of those who were there, but one of them caught that reference.

"You are an SMT fan, Midoriya? I prefer the Persona series to be honest, Persona 3 to be more specific, but I kind of understood what you were trying to say..." Yosetsu Awase said. That caught Izuku by surprise as he never expected that kind of answer, but the moment he heard Persona 3 and thought about the situation, something clicked in his head thanks to the information that he had now in his head.

"...You know, that gave me an idea, Awase." Izuku said as he closed his eyes and then opened them again as he looked at his arms.

"An idea? What are you talking about?" Awase said as he and the others saw how Izuku then cracked his knuckles and looked again at the nomu.

"That lets us hope that the physical split that Persona 3 applied to the physical damage in that game could be a way to bypass that nomu's resistance to All Might's attacks." Izuku said, smirking a little as he had an idea. It was a little risky, but if it worked, then his chances to survive would increase dramatically if he was able to put down that creature that was giving a lot of trouble to All Might.

If striking it with your fists was a useless endeavor, then maybe Izuku's new enhancements to his arms and legs that dramatically increased the sharpness of his arms, legs, and nails that he had recently obtained could do the trick to bypass that creature's ability to absorb blunt force damage.

"...This isn't good." All Might thought to himself as he was still locked in combat with the nomu. That brainless creature was fast, strong, and quite capable of enduring the power behind his attacks, but was simple-minded enough to allow the hero to have some form of an upper hand in the fight despite the apparent lack of effectiveness of his attacks.

He was running out of time in this situation and he was afraid that the nomu would go on a rampage and kill everyone if he wasn't able to defeat it in time. He was under a lot of pressure right now as not only was he about to reach the end of his time limit by the day, but also that he had no other idea about how to deal with the nomu as Shigaraki had little time to brag about the nomu's power to All Might as he was dealing with Vlad King and Eraserhead.

He was considering his options there when he then heard a soft beeping noise that came from nearby that was distracting him that made him lose focus in a critical moment that gave the nomu a chance to attack him. To All Might's credit, he managed to get his head back in the fight as quick as possible and was about to retaliate, but then something happened.

"Fuck you!" The voice of Izuku Midoriya echoed in the plaza as All Might saw how Izuku's right forearm pierced the nomu's stomach from his back, causing the creature to suffer real damage that was not only unable to absorb as Izuku's arm not only pierced the creature stomach but also cut through its skin, bone and muscle in ways that made its Super Regeneration quirk useless as long as Izuku kept his arm logged in his stomach.

"Midoriya!? What are you...!?" All Might tried to ask, but he then saw how Izuku used his other arm to pierce the nomu's back in order to cause some extra unblocable damage to the nomu as hard as possible.

"No time to ask questions! Hit it in the head as hard as possible! Do it now!" Izuku shouted to the hero, aware that there was so much that he could do in this situation if he had his arms stuck in the nomu's body, but he had a plan and he needed All Might to attack it now that Izuku was doing everything he can to render the nomu's quirks as useless as he could considering the situation.

All Might, afraid of the fact that he was on the verge of hitting the last seconds of his time limit, had no choice but to comply with Izuku's order and focus whatever power he could spare in order to hit the nomu in the head now that Izuku was keeping that monster pinned into a vulnerable position.

Izuku was able to sense how close All Might was to delivering that finishing blow to the nomu thanks to Echolocation and Mental map, and when All Might's fist was about to collide with the nomu. Izuku twisted his arms as they were still piercing the nomu's stomach and then brutally severed the nomu's lower body by performing a horizontal cut in the nomu's body through the creature's stomach by pulling his arms away from the nomu's body in a way that the creature's super regeneration wouldn't be fast enough to either reattach the severed body parts or create new ones.

Izuku quickly got on the ground as All Might punch the now airborne nomu in the head with enough force to send him flying into the ceiling of the USJ, causing some additional property damage to the place, but also putting an end to that creature's rampage for good.

"...!" Izuku was able to fully register that beeping sound that distracted All Might and managed to pinpoint the source of that sound. He quickly got up from the ground and ran to where Eraserhead was as fast as he could.

Eraserhead saw the intense face that Izuku was putting as he was looking at him and his instincts kicked in and almost put himself on guard in order to defend himself, Izuku's blood-stained and injured appearance wasn't doing him any favors in this situation, but then he saw how Izuku was opening his mouth as he was getting really close to him.

"GET AWAY FROM THAT THING! IT COULD BLOW UP AT ANY SECOND!" Izuku shouted as he was still running to Eraserhead's location and that warning made the hero pay closer attention to the incapacitated Kurogiri and then he heard a mysterious beeping sound, which combined with Izuku's warnings made the hero realize that maybe he was now in real danger.

Eraserhead tried to then get away from Kurogiri in case it could blow up, but he wasn't fast enough. A loud beeping that came from Kurogiri echoed in the main plaza and then time slowed down from Eraserhead's perspective as he saw how the neck brace suddenly exploded, engulfing Kurogiri's body with that explosion that was about to reach the hero in an instant.

Eraserhead was only able to close his eyes in those moments as there was little that he could do at the moment aside from accepting the inevitable, a part of him felt some comfort in a way for his impending death as he carried a lot of guilt for what happened to his friend Oboro all those years ago and he believed that he should have died that day instead of him, but then he felt how something tackled him with enough force to quickly get him out of the way from that explosion.

"MIDORIYA!" The shout from All Might reached Eraserhead's ears as he was now able to gather his bearings from his surroundings. He was on the ground, far away from the ground zero of that explosion that had only left a badly burned Izuku standing still before he fell to the ground.

The reinforcements, who came a little earlier to the point that they picked up Iida who was midway to U.A. while they were on the way to the USJ thanks to Nezu getting fully paranoid the moment that Izuku's phone signal was supresed by the villains, were greeted with that horrible sight.

Nezu was the first that jump into action and sent almost all the heroes to try to rescue the students who were still trapped in the zones of the USJ while he moved to check on Izuku's situation.

Eraserhead was standing still as he saw how that same kid that he believed was unfit to be a hero based on his own instincts, that kid whose file he had refused to read in order to not build any bias that contained a tragic and dark story that made him even feel some empathy when he was forced to read it, had been the first one to commit the ultimate sacrifice in order to save him from a bad ending at the cost of his life.

Eraserhead was unable to hear what Nezu was saying now, but he saw how he pulled his phone to make some calls and then he stayed at Izuku's side until two paramedics came to the main plaza and gently put him on a portable stretcher.

The guilt that consumed his soul for what happened prevented Eraserhead from hearing the conversation that Nezu had with those paramedics or even hearing the voices of his friends who came to talk to him about what happened as he was already putting himself in the worst-case scenario and there was little that could be done make things right in this situation.

The USJ incident, the name that the news gave to that incident ended with losses for both sides in a way despite the way that things went, as both U.A. and the mysterious Sensei had to lament the loss of certain individuals, but the silver lining was that the losses that U.A. had to face weren't as severe as those that Sensei and the LOV ended facing when all was said and done.

Chapter Text

"..." There was a palpable silence in Nezu's office as an emergency meeting was held there in order to discuss the events that happened in the USJ and how to deal with the aftermath.

The biggest saving grace was that the closest thing to a casualty was that Katsuki Bakugo's dreams as a hero had been killed at the spot as the injuries that he had sustained by his own explosion, that was enhanced thanks to those gauntlets of his that stored his explosive sweat, managed to damage his body beyond any kind of repair despite the fact that he managed to survive those injuries that he had sustained.

That explosion that engulfed Bakugo's body burned his skin to the point that a simple breeze of air caused him severe discomfort and managed to blind him as that explosion burned his eyes, and that combined with the loss of one of his arms, who was permanently loss as the self-detonation of Kurogiri reached said amputated limb, Katsuki Bakugo's situation was now one that prevented him from being a hero at all.

They talked about how that League of Villains had taken a massive blow the moment All Might came to the fray and made the sensible choice of defeating the low-tier villains that were bothering the teachers so they could tag team the two leaders of that villain group.

The capture of the Nomu was a good start despite the fact that said creature showed to be a simple-minded creature that lacked any kind of initiative or desire to do anything on its own and only followed orders.

"Those villains said that the Nomu was created to be an All Might Killer..." Vlad King said. The terms of All Might Killer and Nomu were on Izuku's files as he talked about the few things that he was able to remember and that made those who were in the know about Izuku's situation think that whatever was behind the LOV was also the same group or person that heavily experimented on Izuku.

The idea that Izuku could have been turned into that abomination if he wasn't lucky enough to escape from the lab in which he was experimented was something that concerned Nezu.

"But that...thing, it was inferior to..." Eraserhead mumbled without thinking and that made some people look at him with some reprehension as he was about to reveal some sensitive information that Nezu kept private in order to not add too much pressure on Izuku's life in those moments, but Nezu took a deep breath and decided to rip that bandage himself to avoid things to get more complicated that it need to be for a lack of communication.

"Yes...Eraserhead, that Nomu is quite inferior to Midoriya with all things considered." Nezu said, surprising the few teachers that weren't informed about Izuku's situation and that ended with Nezu having to give a quick resume of Izuku's situation in order to get them up to speed.

"When Izuku was kidnapped and experimented on during those two years. The terms All Might killer and nomu were some of those things that Midoriya managed to remember despite all the drugs and sedatives that were forced on him, and it was clear that those guys who experimented on Midoriya saw something in him when he was a quirkless kid that made him suitable to be turned into a deadly weapon that could kill not only All Might but also almost any hero that stood in his way if what he told to me was true." Nezu said before he gave an explanation about those talks that he had with Izuku in the past as he was going through therapy in order to deal with any mental issues that he could have developed during those years.

"Midoriya may willingly or subconsciously suppress how to use all those quirks that were implanted in him, but as he had shown when dealing with those villains in the conflagration zone, or when he managed to damage the nomu in a way that bypassed his quirks, he was experimented on to make him an individual that can adapt to his foes quirks and use them against them, track them in a long distance through sound alone, and his eyes could scan his enemies to find potential weaknesses to exploit." Nezu said, aware that selling Izuku in such a way could work against the reason that he insisted on Izuku so much to study in U.A. hero course despite knowing that what he wanted was revenge, but he wasn't done yet.

"But there is one thing that keeps Midoriya from reaching the deep end...and that is his humanity. A humanity that I need for you people to help him not forget and to help him to restore his sense of feeling himself human, as those experiments that had left his body maimed and scared made him consider himself a monster, and not a heavily traumatized boy who he truly is." Nezu said. The conversation continued to talk about how they could manage to get some clues about the location of the LOV without having anyone mentally capable of answering that question as not only the nomu was unable to talk, but those villains that were captured didn't knew a thing about their base of operations as they were told to wait for them in an alleyway in the city of Mustafu.

The next day of class after the USJ incident came, and while some of the students of class 1-A were somewhat mad at Shoto Todoroki for his lack of care for them when he carelessly used his ice in the Downpour Zone to stop the villains and they ended trapped in ice thanks to the constant rain inside said the area that made the whole are wet and that expanded the reach of Shoto's ice, the some of the students of class 1-B were concerned about Izuku's fate after they saw how he literally ran through that explosion that killed the villain made of mist in order to save Eraserhead's life, the question about his scarred body and those black arms and legs of his were also in their mind, but they were more concerned for his health at the moment over what those bandages of his cover.

"I know that the events of the previous day had been quite hard on you all. None of us expected for a group of villains to not only get bold enough to pull something like this, but also to have someone capable of fighting All Might to a standstill, but aside from the fact that one student of class 1-A had been injured to the point that he is unable to be a hero anymore...we managed to pull through that event with little losses..." Vlad King said. He was bracing himself for any kind of question that his students could have about the situation, a situation that Eraserhead was going through as well as the fact that a villain group managed to attack U.A. was a thing that would concern them.

So when Kinoko asked about Izuku's condition, and then asked if part of the reason that he was so distant from them was because of those black arms and legs of his that he kept covered all the time, he knew that he was going to have one of the hardest conversations of the day.

"Midoriya's situation...is quite complicated. He is not in the hero course because he wants to be a hero like everyone else in the hero course..." Vlad King said, and somewhere in U.A., a certain blond student sneezed while Eraserhead was talking about what happened in the past days and how what came next after the USJ was the sports festival and how they would train the next month in order to be prepared for it.

"As much as I would like to share some information about his past in order to help you understand what he is going through. I'm afraid that it would be a clear violation of his privacy if I did that and that is something that only Midoriya would do on his own once he is able to feel comfortable around you... so please, just have some patience with him and try to help him feel comfortable around you all." Vlad King said. He knew that Nezu told him that he would talk with Izuku about this in order to make him understand it if he decided to share the details about Izuku's past with them despite Izuku's wishes to keep that for himself in order to make them more understanding of Izuku's situation and more willing to open up to him, but Vlad King decided to respect Izuku's wishes in order to not make the whole class try to get too pushy with their attempts to try to make Izuku feel part of the class so Izuku wouldn't decide to double down with his decision to keep his distance with them should he felt overwhelmed by that extra attention.

Vlad King knew that the best way to help Izuku in this situation was to let Izuku be the one who would make the decision to interact with his classmates to tackle those issues on his own terms when he considered that he was ready to do that over putting him in a situation in which he had no control on that choice. That didn't mean that he wasn't going to try to convince his classmates to be more accepting of Izuku's particular way of behaving at the moment so Izuku could feel that he made that choice sooner than expected.

"...How is he doing right now?" Nezu said. He was in U.A.'s infirmary, checking on Izuku's condition after he had been brought here in an ambulance from the USJ after the incident with the LOV, and while he was now fully healed up, to the point that the burn injuries in his skin that he acquired after he tanked that explosion to save Eraserhead's life weren't marring his skin, Izuku was still heavily asleep.

"He is not in danger...but he had fallen in a deep sleep like he used to do when he suffered some serious injuries in the past..." Recovery Girl said. Nezu's decision to get involved in Izuku's life after he returned to his family after enduring all that experimentation that had turned him into what he is now in a way allowed Izuku to have a special pass to enter to U.A. in case he needed to receive medical attention as he had a nasty reaction to the idea of being in a hospital after all that he endured and U.A.'s infirmary had become the place in which Izuku had received medical attention from time to time, and that in on itself was a daunting task considering that a lot of the experimentation that Izuku received in order to implant quirks in him made his body to heal up to a pace that made things like a normal surgery and putting in an iv on him a nearly impossible task unless you relied on massive amounts of medication that could suppress quirks in order to weaken said regeneration that he had now.

"I see...at least his skin wouldn't be signed off even though he had been badly burned because of that explosion..." Nezu said.

"I don't like this Nezu...Midoriya shouldn't be on the hero course, we both know what he truly wants and I am afraid that he could lose himself in his own trauma if he is allowed to fulfill his desire for vengeance in that state..." Nezu was unable to refute Recovery Girl's words as he was quite aware of what truly made Izuku accept his suggestion of entering the hero course.

"I know...but is either this or having Izuku go full vigilante, and as long as he stays in U.A. and is not going on his own to try to find those that did this to him, then there is more time that we have to try to help him as he is still in our reach." Nezu said.

"I know...but is quite frustrating that we barely managed to make any meaningful progress in those past years...an injured mind is more difficult to mend than an injured body..." Recovery Girl said.

"He is still in pain despite the fact that he is with us now...his mind is still trapped in that hell on earth that he was forced to endure all those years ago, and unless he is able to fully move on from that incident, then I am afraid that there is little what we can do for him aside from trying to support him and try to arrange the environment in U.A. to help him to heal..." Nezu said-

Both Recovery Girl and Nezu then talked about what happened in the USJ and how all the injuries that Bakugo had received in the USJ had put a permanent end to his desire to be a hero before they saw how Izuku started to open his eyes.

"Ummm..." Izuku opened his eyes and saw that he was in U.A. infirmary, his last memory was when he ran through that explosion that almost consumed Eraserhead's body in order to save that man's life, and considering the situation, then it appeared that he had been out of commission for some time after that explosion incapacitated him.

"You are awake now. Good." Recovery Girl said. He saw how Izuku was slowly moving his head to check his surroundings before he realized that he was sleeping on one of the beds of the infirmary.

"How much...?"

"Excuse me?" Nezu asked as he saw how Izuku tried to ask a question to them.

"How much time I had been out of commission?"

"...2 days in a way. You had spent half of the day after the USJ incident, the previous day, and part of this day in bed until you woke up." Recovery Girl said.

"I see..." Izuku said. He heard how Nezu and Recovery Girl talked to him about what had transpired after the events of the USJ, like how Bakugo was now crippled for life, how Eraserhead suffered some PTSD after seeing him sacrificing himself to save his life from that explosion, and how his classmates of class 1-B were concerned for his condition after they saw how he was taken away from the USJ on an ambulance.

There was a lot to process at the moment, but considering the situation and that he wanted to be back at home now to see his mom after being out of commission for two days. Nezu and Recovery Girl decided to let Izuku go back to his home...but not before dressing himself after said explosion destroyed what remained of his clothes and eating something in the cafeteria, only after that, Izuku would be allowed to leave U.A. to return home to see his mom...

Chapter Text

"..." Izuku was now in the cafeteria after he dressed himself in the clothes that were given to him after he woke up which consisted of a pair of jeans, a pair of shoes, and a blue hospital gown to dress himself. The backpack that he carried to the USJ was returned to him, allowing him to use the bandages he had stored there to cover his arms and hands before calling his mom to ease her worries about his situation at the moment.

It was 12:19, and while normally Izuku won't be allowed to be in the cafeteria at this hour as he should be in class, the situation that made him be there at that hour was exceptional, and Lunch Rush had been informed about why he was there so he was allowed to be there and get something to eat while Lunch Rush would be busy preparing himself before the lunch hour started.

Izuku was sitting at a table near the corner of the cafeteria, minding his own business as he was staring at the big bowl of white rice and the glass of water that was going to be his meal at the moment if his mind was willing to cooperate with him and allowed him to not think about the events that happened the past days.

The modifications that his arms and legs received when he fought those villains in the conflagration zone had disappeared, allowing them to return to normal, but the truth was that they were still there, waiting for the moment that Izuku's mind considered that they would be needed again despite his misgivings about having to rely on those unwanted quirks and powers that were forced upon him thanks to those experiments and operations that he endured as a child.

Those iron scales that covered his arms and legs in those moments and the increased sharpness that allowed to damage the nomu were born from one of the quirks that were implanted in him whose name he had remembered after being forced to use it, said quirk's name was Combat Development, and it allowed certain parts of Izuku's body to "evolve" during combat to adapt to the foe that he was facing based on the damage that he took as long as said damage was caused by a quirk in order to either develop a way to counter said damage or to allow himself to cause that same damage to others, so when that man with the knife used his quirk to make said knives sharper in order to hurt him and the man with the four arms covered in iron scales attacked him, Combat Development made his arms and legs to grow iron scales that were far sturdier than the ones that belonged to that man with four arms and said scales made those limbs far sharper that whatever kind of sharpness the man with the knives could impose to his knives.

If what that man said to another person in the room as he implanted that quirk on him was true, then Combat Development was the result of fusing multiple quirks into one singular quirk to allow the existence of a quirk that defied the logic of how transformation quirks worked...but considered that he was in possession of multiple quirks even though it was thought to be impossible in this day and age, then maybe the logic about how quirks worked in his quirks was something that he should abandon, but that wasn't was was lingering in his mind despite the fact that he forced himself to use said quirk.

There was something inside of him that had changed the moment he impaled the nomu's stomach with his hands. It was difficult to explain, but something was dragged inside of him during those moments in which Izuku managed to injure that creature, and whatever it was that he had dragged inside of him had managed to change him in a way that Izuku was unable to figure out at the moment. Izuku knew that it would be pointless to worry about those details now as the last thing he wanted was to get obsessed with that detail, but he knew himself well enough to know that said small detail was going to pester him for a while until he either decided to roll with it or managed to figure out what it was.

Izuku was so absorbed by those thoughts that the sound of some people sitting at the same table where he was located was ignored and only was made aware of the change in his surroundings when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"Midoriya?!. Are you alright?! We feared the worst when we saw how that explosion engulfed you..." The voice of a girl reached his ears, and Izuku then fully stopped being so absorbed by his own thoughts to realize that he had wasted a lot of time thinking about himself to the point that it was now lunch hour for everyone in the school. He wanted to eat as fast as possible to go home so nobody could see him with those clothes...but that ship had sailed by the looks of it.

"Sorry for worrying you people... but as you can see, I am fine. Well...as fine as I can be considering the situation." Izuku said, somewhat unsure about what to say in a normal conversation with someone of his age as he barely had interacted with people of his age after he started to be home-schooled, a lot of his social skills had atrophied from the lack of use and that in a way made him be somewhat wary to deal with others as he didn't want to embarrass himself that much in case that he did something improper by mistake.

"I'm glad...is almost a miracle that you quickly recovered from that explosion, Midoriya. You looked so...burned after the smoke dissipated." Ibara said, happy to see that her classmate, one that she may have barely interacted with, but could see that he was a tormented soul had survived that incident that could had killed any of them if they weren't as lucky as Izuku was by the looks of it.

"Maybe..." Izuku replied. It was clear that his new classmates wanted to talk with him despite how their first day went, and while Izuku knew that some of those questions that they could have about him would not be answered at all because he refused to talk about them for the moment, Izuku saw no harm at all to try to at least be more sociable with the people that he would have to be classmates with for at least three years...

"What is your quirk if you don't mind us asking about it?"

"What is your favorite color?"

"What is your favorite food?"

"What is your favorite Persona?"

"This was a mistake..."Izuku thought to himself as he heard how those classmates of his who wanted to talk with him started to ask him a lot of questions about himself, and while they had enough tact to avoid asking about what was going on with his arms, legs, and the whole being covered with scars, some of those questions that he was asked were something that Izuku wasn't that comfortable with the idea of answering yet.

"Alright...let me answer in order. I do mind that question, so sorry but I am not answering that one, I don't care too much about colors but I think that green is my favorite, katsudon is my favorite food... and my favorite persona? Well, I am more of an SMT guy to be honest...but I like Kaguya in her Persona 5 Royal appearance, the whole trait of hers that tripled reflected damage back to her enemies made it a lot of fun to load her skill slots with 7 of the 9 repel skills available in the game and Salvation instead of Shining Arrows to use her against bosses without Almighty skills or certain bosses with annoying gimmicks. Sure, that made her a one-trick pony that made Joker only capable of fully healing the party while still being unable to repel gun, bless, or curse damage, but is not like a lot of enemies in that game used gun skills anyway, Kaguya by default nulls bless and curse damage, and that was quite fun to watch despite the fact that is not a really effective build if I am honest." Izuku said.

That last answer to that question was one that only one person in that small group understood, and that was the person who asked said question.

"I see..." Awase said. He understood what Izuku was talking about, and while he remembered that he always built Kaguya in order to capitalize on her unique skill to the point of changing her persona trait to one that worked well with her unique skill

"You really like video games, don't you, Midoriya?" Kinoko said.

"Well... I do prefer RPG the most...because I like the idea of not being myself and thinking that I am someone else for a while." Izuku said, aware that his words were kind of a mood killer but it was not like Izuku was lying.

"Oh..." Ibara said.

"As you people see, I'm not that much of a social person...but if you people are that interested in me, then maybe I would reconsider going back to class instead of being away from you like I did the past week...but not today." Izuku said.

"And why is that?" Awase asked.

"Because I want to see my mom...I recently woke up after the whole incident and I want to show her that I'm fine." Izuku said. Maybe it was because his disappearance during those two years before he was found brought a lot of pain to his parents, but Izuku promised himself that he would never put his parents in a similar position again if he could help it and would try to tell them where he was to make them to not worry about him.

"Tsk...you are so pathetic, and you are in the hero course?" A new voice that Izuku didn't know reached his ears and then he saw how a purple-haired guy with eye bags under his eyes and an expression on his face that screamed that he had a massive chip on his shoulders had decided to butt in on this group in order to talk him down by the looks of it.

"..." Izuku didn't bother to reply to that boy, as the moment he looked at him, his body was able to sense that he was under the effect of a quirk that would activate in case he replied to his words.

"What's the matter? Can't handle the truth, momma's boy?" That boy said. He was Shinso Hitoshi, and he was Eraserhead's apprentice. He was upset at the fact that Eraserhead told him that Nezu had vetoed him from entering the Hero course by the transferring route and that he would have to earn by his own merits the chance to enter the hero course before Nezu decided to allow him to enter, and instead of trying to just focus on his training or doing something more productive than to taunt Izuku, he instead acted like a petulant child and tried to get some petty revenge on the kid that hadn't done anything to him at all by trying to humiliate him by not only taunting him but also trying to use his quirk to humiliate him even further.

"..." But sadly for that boy, Izuku Midoriya was the one person in the whole school who had the tools to not only resist or even nullify his quirk effects on him but also was able to learn from it in order to find weaknesses to counter it.

"You look so pathetic right now..." Shinso continued with his taunts and insults in order to force Izuku to respond to his words, but Izuku simply stared at him with those green eyes with black sclera that made Shinso slowly be more enervated as he continued to talk in his futile attempt to get Izuku to take the bait.

Izuku's decision to endure those insults in silence as he was just analyzing Shinso's quirk with his eyes, which had a quirk that allowed him to figure out what quirk a person had and to learn more about it the more time he spent looking at them, had an unintended effect as Eraserhead was forced to accept the fact that when he was so insistent on Shinso's potential as a hero, he was heavily projecting his younger self and his struggles into Shinso in order to justify the reasons that he was giving him that extra attention to him in order to get him to succeed in the task that he failed when he was in Shinso's position as a general student.

To see how Shinso was heavily trying to bully someone that he knew who had serious issues in such a despicable way was what broke that delusion and forced the hero to realize that he had in a way enabled Shinso to the point that he believed that behaving like that was a thing that a hero should do, that same kind of attitude that Bakugo had in the first day before Nezu came to their class the second day in order to warn Bakugo that his behavior with Izuku was not only unacceptable, but he was now on his last chance before Nezu considered to expel him for his villainous behavior, as trying to attack Izuku during the quirk apprehension test and then openly insult him and belittle him after Eraserhead unfairly expelled him was things that Nezu refused to let go unpunished.

Eraserhead decided to try to correct that mistake and got to Shinso in order to have him stand down and leave Izuku alone, and the fact that Shinso looked so betrayed when Eraserhead admonished him for what he was doing was something that made Eraserhead feel conflicted.

"..." Izuku simply looked at Eraserhead, not caring that much about the reasons why that man decided to do his job now, as whatever trust that he could have in Eraserhead as a teacher was fully destroyed after what happened on the first day, and while he saved his life during the USJ, he did it because Eraserhead was a hero with a useful quirk and not because he felt that he needed to save the man. If Izuku let his emotions for that man take control during those moments, then Eraserhead would be dead and he would have spent the two past days at home with his mom, over being unconscious and badly burned on a bed in U.A. infirmary before he fully recovered from that incident.

Izuku then finished his meal, somewhat uncaring about the fact that the rice was cold and it was quite tasteless, and then he walked to the entrance of U.A. to go home.

Chapter Text

" U.A. Sports Festival..." Izuku said. He was called the next day of class to go to Nezu's office in order to inform him about the incoming event and to ask him if he wanted to not take part in it despite being part of the hero course.

In a normal situation, a student of the hero course was forced to take part in the sports festival no matter what as they had to show themselves to the public and the heroes at large to try to gain enough attention from the heroes in Japan for the chance to gain internship offers for the internship week that came after the sports festival, but Izuku's situation and motives to be in the hero course weren't normal, then giving Izuku the chance to decide to take part on it or not was what Nezu thought that it was the right thing to do as he was aware of Izuku's distaste for heroes and the hero system and only went with his idea of going to the hero course because he was the only hero that he respected.

"I know that you told me that you really had no desire to take part in it when I brought you the idea to take part in the hero course in U.A. a month before classes started, but I wanted to talk with you about it in case that you changed your mind." Nezu said. He saw how Izuku was actually thinking about how should he answer his question before he shrugged as he answered.

"I don't know...might as well give it a chance since I am in the hero course, but I don't really care too much about the internship offers or the internship week, so in the case that I participate and decide that the sports festival isn't for me, then I will just quit. Is that acceptable?" Izuku said.

"Yes...considering the situation, those demands are an acceptable compromise, but if you start to have second thoughts about your participation before the day of the sports festival and decide that you don't want to participate in the end, then you just have to tell me and I will allow you to not take part on it." Nezu said.

"Thank you..." Izuku replied to Nezu's words and then moved to other things. Nezu asked about what happened the previous day in the cafeteria with Shinso Hitoshi and he just told him that Shinso tried to bait him into answering his taunts in order to have him fall under his quirk control and that it didn't took a genius to figure out that Shinso had anything but hero-friendly ideas when he acted like that before Eraserhead stepped in to force Shinso to back off and to stop acting like a school bully.

Nezu was disappointed to see that Shinso Hitoshi had decided to act like that and that he decided to try to humiliate and insult Izuku in order to make himself feel better after he lost that supposed easy entrance to the hero course after Eraserhead committed a massive blunder with Izuku during the first day of class and Nezu decided to deny him the entrance to the hero course trough technicalities to force Shinso to either shape up or to abandon his dream to be a hero.

Nezu was going to keep a close watch on that kid because he was starting to feel that Shinso Hitoshi was in a genuine danger of switching sides and become either a vigilante or a villain out of spite because he had been "denied" the chance to enter the hero course that Eraserhead had promised to him when the truth was that if he had made a real effort during the entrance exam over throwing the towel when his quirk was useless, then he would have more chances to be in the hero course that if he acted like a petulant child that was unable to accept being told no. The fact that if Eraserhead had read Izuku's file on the first day and actually did his supposed job as a teacher, then Nezu would have allowed Eraserhead to have Shinso in class 1-A as a hero student because Izuku's participation in the hero course was more for a therapeutical reason that to be a hero and Nezu was willing to make a compromise with Eraserhead to allow that to happen before Eraserhead screwed things up was something that made Shinso's decision to antagonize Izuku more tragic in a way.

Shinso's behavior is one that made him feel quite entitled with his desire to be a hero just because he had suffered a lot of bullying in the past because of his villainous quirk and it was his lack of will to train harder after all the training that he did with Eraserhead was not enough to pass the entrance exam, as Shinso was denied the usage of a capture scarf as it had nothing to do with his quirk, and his lack of empathy with others what held him back to enter the hero course at this point.

Nezu listened with interest about how Eraserhead talked about how he found a kid in Saitama who had the potential to be a hero in his eyes and how he was willing to spend time outside U.A. to train him to become a hero and to see how Eraserhead completely ignored the basic to train a hero student in order to have Shinso to act like a sub-par version of himself in combat who was literally useless without his scarf, a problem that Eraserhead didn't have as he still knew how to fight without his trusty scarf if the situation came to that extreme, was the final nail in the coffin alongside his treatment of Izuku what made Nezu to finally put his foot down and admonish Eraserhead for his incompetence.

The mess in the USJ and the apparition of the LOV, unfortunately, forced Nezu to put his plan to fire Eraserhead for his lack of competence as a teacher on hold as the fact that the LOV had a connection with the people who experimented with Izuku was something that required Nezu's full attention and Nezu wasn't going to lose a potential asset against those dangerous villains as Erasure could be used to deal with any potential danger that the LOV could throw at them until the put an end to that group.

Their lack of leads that they could use to find them was something that forced Nezu to take a more passive position until the LOV attacked again, and Nezu was going to try to gather resources and people to deal with that threat in case they decided to make a move again so U.A. could counter them and stop them as quick as possible, but until then, Nezu had his job as a principal of U.A. to do and that was what he was going to do.

As Izuku promised to those classmates of his who talked with him the other day, he returned to class in order to spend time with them, and after some awkward weeks in which Izuku's lack of social skills became quite apparent to everyone in the class. Izuku was able to find something akin to a place in the class that made him feel that he belonged there despite the fact that he was a bit of a loner who felt like he stuck out like a sore thumb when he was around them.

The fact that those weeks were those in which all the students of the hero course were busy training almost every school hour in order to get ready for their respective sports festival and that meant that Izuku was unable to hide in any training ground as all of them were occupied by a hero course in one way or another in a way forced Izuku to stay in the same training ground that his classmates were using and that made Izuku to interact with them during the weeks before the sports festival.

Those weeks of training showed some things to his classmates about Izuku that made them somewhat confused about the reasons that he was there, like how Izuku lacked any real skill in hand-to-hand combat and how he pretty much relied on that insane endurance that he had to outlast them all during those sparing matches and how Izuku looked quite reluctant to throw hands with them as he was afraid to hurt them when he tried to attack them with those slow and telegraphed attacks of his, a thing that contrasted with how he was in the USJ when he attacked the nomu with no hesitation and critically injured that creature.

Izuku was also someone who never initiated any conversation with them and was a more passive listener who was content to listen to people talk about things...unless you talked about RPGs, then Izuku was more active in that conversation and was able to show some initiative, but since the only person that was able to get Izuku to talk about that was Awase, who was glad to find someone that knew about the games he liked and was able to give his opinion about builds or strategies to defeat bosses in any SMT or Persona game that existed, then few people could get Izuku to interact like that in a normal conversation during the first weeks...he may had improved a lot since those days, but he preferred to talk about RPGs or any other thing that wasn't himself or what his quirk could do.

Izuku's behavior and tendency to keep things to himself made him hang around certain classmates that made him feel more comfortable, and aside from Awase whose liking of RPGs allowed him to find a common ground with Izuku that made him feel comfortable enough to hang with him despite the fact that Izuku would have felt some apprehension to him in another situation, Izuku found himself hanging around Komori, Tsunotori, and Shiozaki the most in comparison to other classmates for different reasons.

Kinoko was more or less someone who managed in a way to connect with Izuku as the fact that she was thrown into a situation that made her feel hopeless when Izuku was around her made him feel some empathy for her plight, and Kinoko's attempts to befriend Izuku after the whole USJ happening was something that Izuku appreciated, Pony was surprised to see that Izuku was able to understand her when she spoke in English and had helped her in the past weeks to improve her Japanese so she could better communicate with her classmates, And Ibara decided out of her own volition to try to help Izuku as she considered that he was someone that had gone through a horrible situation that had left him that scarred and traumatized and she believed that helping Izuku to feel better about his situation and to help him to heal was the most righteous and morally correct thing to do.

Those actions in a way helped Izuku to make his final decision to take part in the sports festival despite his initial reluctance to participate, and when he told Nezu that he was going to try it if only because his classmates were going to do that, then Nezu was happy to hear that answer for him.

The day of the sports festival came, and Izuku felt somewhat overwhelmed with the whole event and how he was now surrounded by people who were watching him from the stands of the stadium and in their house as well as the whole sports festival was a televised event.

A red-haired boy from class 1-A was giving an opening speech as he was the guy that had the highest score during the entrance exam, and aside from the excessive usage of the words manly and manliness, Izuku believed that it was a nice speech. Izuku may be uncaring about that whole speech and who was meant to give it, but if Bakugo's aspirations to be a hero had suffered a brutal end after he had been crippled for life during the USJ incident, then it would be Bakugo the person that would give that speech in this day and not Eijiro Kirishima, who was the second highest score during the entrance exam but was giving that speech instead of Bakugo because of the circumstances.

Speaking of class 1-A...All of them had different opinions of Izuku even though they had been classmates with the boy only for a couple of minutes before Eraserhead expelled him, and those opinions were what defined their short relationship with Bakugo before he was out of the picture.

Eijiro Kirishima was someone who wanted to be manly as he wanted to compensate for his perceived weak will in the past in order to move on from his past of dealing with bullies before he make his decision to reinvent himself to be more confident and sure of himself. Bakugo's confidence in himself and aggressive behavior in the beginning made Kirishima to believe that Bakugo was a manly person and someone to emulate...but that idea and desire to emulate Bakugo's behavior quickly died when he saw how Bakugo was gleeful with the sight of Izuku walking away from the quirk assessment test and how he started to throw those nasty insults at izuku's person when Izuku was still walking away.

The clear joy in Bakugo's face and voice as he saw how Izuku walked away as he threw words like, 'Crippled Freak', 'Frankenstein Lookalike', and 'Useless Freak of Nature' among other insults that were even worse were what made Kirishima and the others in the class to see Bakugo for who he truly was, a villainous bully, and no one in the class wanted anything to do with him as to see how vile those words were and how happy he was when he insulted Izuku for the situation that he was facing in those moments quickly destroyed whatever chance for Bakugo to gain any sympathy or friendship in class.

Those in class 1-A who had mutant quirks were really upset at Bakugo's behavior and refused to give him the benefit of the doubt as said behavior made them think about the people who bullied them in the past because of their quirks and their appearances, the others, in the end, shared that sentiment when Nezu came to the class the next day to lay the law on Eraserhear and Bakugo for what they did, and to see the principal of U.A. himself telling Bakugo that he was on thin ice for his reprehensible behavior and that he would be expelled if he tried to go pull that kind of stunt again was what sealed Bakugo's fate in a away.

Without Kirishima thinking that Bakugo wasn't anything else but a manly person with a misunderstood heart of gold despite his repulsive behavior, Bakugo was deprived of the help that would have saved him from being injured by his own explosion, because if Kirishima had jumped into the fray at the same time that Bakugo did during the USJ, then Kurogiri wouldn't have been able to create that single portal to turn Bakugo's explosion against him as he would have been busy with thinking about how to deal with two people instead of one and that would have distracted him, also, Kirishima not jumping at the same time as Bakugo did make Bakugo throw caution to the wind and decided to go for his default answer to anything that displeased him with near-fatal results for Bakugo after all was said and done.

And then there was Tsuyu Asui. She wanted to thank Izuku for doing everything he could to save her life during the USJ after she was put into a near critical condition because she was thrown in the only area in the USJ that badly affected her health, but Eraserhead told them that they wouldn't be allowed to do anything else in the rest of the month before the sports festival but to train, and that prevented her from trying to talk with Izuku as their classes didn't have any other joint exercise after the USJ. and she hoped that she would have her chance to thank him for what he did for her either today or after the end of the sports festival, but only time would tell if she would get her chance today or not...

Chapter Text

After Kirishima's manly speech was over, the first event for the day was revealed to everyone, and it appeared that they would all take part in an obstacle race in order to decide who would pass to the next event based on their position in this race. They were given a short time before the race started, and before Izuku was able to join his classmates to get his point across about how Monoma's plan would be a mistake, he was intercepted by Shoto Todoroki, the most hated student in class 1-A now after Bakugo was forced to abandon the hero course after the injuries that he sustained during the USJ ruined his life.

Why he was the most hated student in class 1-A now? Simple, his lack of care about his surroundings during the events on the USJ when he used the ice side of his quirk, as he was sent to the downpour zone alongside a lot of his classmates and some students of class 1-B, caused a lot of friendly fire as his ice almost froze some of those students on the spot and trapped the others inside the buildings that they had entered to use as a refuge, and it took All Might's intervention to help all the students and villains that were affected by Todoroki's ice. He was called out for what he did by Eraserhead, who now was making a real effort at his job even though his students had little trust in him, but that wasn't enough to get Todoroki to stop holding back his quirk and to use his fire.

"You..." Todoroki said. Izuku honestly didn't care at all to talk with that person as there was something really wrong with him, but he had to at least be civil at the moment because there were some cameras recording the whole thing and Izuku wanted to keep some level of decorum at the moment.

"What do you need, Todoroki?"

"You were the one that helped All Might to take down that creature during the USJ..." Izuku was shocked to see that Todoroki was openly talking about what happened in the USJ despite the fact that he was sure that the students of both classes had been told to not talk about the situation in order to not give ammunition to journalists who could try to write a hit piece against heroes and the heroic community by trying to use whatever they could say to paint a different picture to what U.A. said when they gave an official statement. Izuku hoped that Nezu or someone who was recording this event would censor this conversation or something to fix Todoroki's mistake.

"I didn't do such a thing..." Izuku denied in order to try to let Todoroki know that now was not the time to talk about this.

"Whatever...one way or another, you are in my way to surpass All Might, so mark my words, I will take you down with my ice to prove myself superior to you." Todoroki said. Izuku stared at Todoroki for a couple of seconds before he decided to tell him how he felt about his declaration of war or whatever this was.

"Whatever you say, buddy, whatever you say..." Izuku said and then decided to meet up with his classmates, not giving Todoroki any more time than necessary as Izuku cared little for whatever ambition or desire that Todoroki had that made him think that defeating him was the way for him to move forward in his goal to surpass All Might.

Izuku was here to try to have fun, and indulging someone like him in his obsession to surpass All Might was something that Izuku didn't consider fun, so when he finally was able to meet up with his classmates, they were looking at him with some concern.

"Are you okay Midoriya? Did Todoroki say something bad to you?" Itsuka Kendo said, she was the class representative of Izuku's class and she considered that the well-being of her classmates was her responsibility, and despite the whole trying to karate chop Monoma in the neck to try to stop him from getting out of hand when his ego got the better of him when Izuku was there, who caused for Izuku to step in to take that blow for Monoma and then call her out in her usage of senseless violence again a classmate under the argument that they weren't in a comedy anime and that to try to employ slapstick levels of violence over trying to talk some sense to get him to behave was an unheroic behavior, their relationship was quite cordial. That incident also made Monoma forgive Izuku in a way for what he told him during the second day of class and made him to make the point to respect his desire to not have his quirk copied not only because of that tone-deaf warning of Izuku, but because Monoma considered that Izuku had some clear issues with his quirk and he wasn't going to cause him trouble if that was the reason for Izuku's words that day.

"Yeah...he just wanted to say to me that he wanted to defeat me with his ice in order to get one step closer to surpassing All Might...even if his refusal to use his quirk at its full potential is one of those things that would prevent him from reaching that goal of his..." Izuku said, letting people think about Torodoki and his standing in U.A. at large.

At this point, Todoroki's refusal to use his quirk to his fullest was something known by everyone in U.A. and that caused a lot of friction with the students of the general course with class 1-A as they considered that Todoroki was too prideful and sure of himself if he believed that he had what it takes to be a hero despite actively handicapping himself by only using half of his power. The other students of class 1-A were more or less able to smooth things over with almost all the students of the general course, but Todoroki was someone who was heavily disliked in general for multiple reasons by all his peers.

"But enough about him...he doesn't matter at all. Are you people going to go with Monoma's plan or not?" Izuku said after a short silence.

"Some of us will. Midoriya, I still think that is a good idea, but if some of you people want to go all out in the first round, then go for it." Monoma said.

The amount of time that they had to talk with each other before they were told to go to were the race would be celebrated was short, but Izuku at least knew that some of his classmates would try to underperform a little in order to save some strength for the second event while others would give their all since the beginning of the sports festival.

He made up his mind about how he was going to take this event and then waited for the signal for them to prepare themselves for the race would be given to them. Izuku would admit that he was quite nervous at the moment if someone would have asked him how he was feeling at the moment, but he pushed said nervousness aside and focused on trying to have fun in this sports festival. He just hoped for things to not get as crazy as they got in the USJ...

"GO!" The signal for the students participating in the sports event to start the obstacle race was given, and chaos ensued.

Shoto Todoroki started the race not only by using his quirk to try to sabotage the other participants by blocking the entrance of the tunnel after he entered but also by using said ice to make the terrain more slippery for the others to traverse so they would have a harder time in the run, that was his original plan...but things went off scrip the moment Izuku got involved.

Izuku was able to reach Todoroki as he was about to slam his foot on the ground to spread his ice, and for some reason, all that ice that he created with his quirk fully enveloped Izuku's body into a block of ice even though Todoroki wasn't actively trying to freeze Izuku solid. That action drained Todoroki's reserves of stamina more than he expected for some reason, but he was unable to think too hard about the reason why he felt like that as Izuku then managed to break through that block of ice that was trapping him and a shard of that block of ice hit Todoroki in the stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs and leaving him conscious but really exhausted in the ground.

"What the...?" Izuku said that after he felt how Combat Development kicked in after a bit of that ice reached his shoes, and by the time he was aware that said quirk had fully activated against his will, he was encased in a block of ice.

He looked at his arms and feet and saw that his bandages and shoes had been destroyed, that happened in the USJ as Combat Development made his arms and legs adapt to the attacks of those particular villains, and now that he saw that said limbs were partially covered by fire and ice.

Todoroki was looking with a bit of horror and hatred at how Izuku's body had changed after Izuku had somehow absorbed the ice that he created and then Izuku's arms and legs were constantly emitting fire and ice at the same time.

"...!" Izuku started to cough lightly and then he saw how started to expel a breath of both fire and ice at the same time, which made him realize what happened to him.

Months after Izuku returned home, Izuku was trying to return to what his life was before he was kidnapped, and his father had taken a small vacation from work in America to check on him. His dad had a coughing fit that made him breathe fire by accident as his quirk was triggered by mistake in those moments. A small lick of that fire that his father had breathed out reached his covered arm, and that triggered Combat Development for the first time after he was rescued, which caused his throat and whole respiratory system to develop in a way that would allow him to breathe fire in a similar way as his dad did. Izuku did his best to suppress that event out of his mind because he really wasn't in the right head space to think about what Combat Development could do in those moments, but now...now he was in a better head space to actually deal with what said quirk entailed, but even he was surprised to see how radical the changes that Combat Development had enforced in his body this time.

He was running away from the tunnel as his mind was quickly processing what was going on with him right now...and it appeared that his body had absorbed the ice that Todoroki was creating in those moments in order to fully develop his body in a way that he could not only use said ice that he created but also the fire that Todoroki refused to use for some reason.

Could that be the result of the extent of what Combat Development could do for him in order to have him adapt to the quirks that tried to hurt him, or was there something else behind what just happened right now that Izuku was unable to figure out a the moment? Regardless of the reasons or the motive behind this "evolution" Izuku knew that now was not the time to ponder those questions as he was taking part in the U.A. Sports Festival, and while he cared little about winning or losing in this competition, he told Nezu that he was going to participate in the end, so that was going what he was going to do.

So when Izuku got out of that tunnel, he focused his mind in order to contol those flames and ice that were enveloping his arms and legs to keep those appendages covered by orange flames during the rest of the race.

It was a strange feeling the one that was going through his mind at the moment as he ran through those giant robots before he reached a massive pit that separated him from the last area of the race, but he found those flames comforting for some reason. Maybe it was because it reminded him of his father, who had a fire quirk and was in America, but Izuku at least wasn't going through the same situation that he faced during the USJ that forced Combat Development to make his arms and legs to grow iron scales that were sharp enough to cut through bone, skin, and muscle.

Those flames at least could be used to keep those limbs of his that he kept covered all the time hidden and that maybe was what made him feel less apprehensive in this situation, He would need a new pair of shoes after this, but that would be for later. There was a race to finish and Izuku was going to reach the end of this obstacle race no matter what.

Meanwhile...in a bar in Kamino. A white-haired man was too busy gaming with his PC to even pay attention to the fact that today was the day that the U.A. Sports Festival was going on.

Tomura Shigaraki was quite wary of Kurogiri's replacement, who was just a clone of Kurogiri that emitted white mist with his quirk instead of emitting black mist and had the totally original name of Shirogiri, but was a literal robot that lacked any agency and personality in comparison to Kurogiri and just let him do what he wanted without talking at all.

Shirogiri was a poor man replacement for Kurogiri who not only had an inferior copy of Kurogiri's quirk, but wasn't as smart as Kurogiri was, limiting their usefulness to just a pawn to order around that could do the bare minimum to protect Shigaraki out of their own volition, but considering the damage that the corpse that they used to create Shirogiri had suffered before being turned into a nomu, then it was a miracle that the doctor managed to quickly create Shirogiri in less than a month in order to have them to keep tabs on Shigaraki.

AFO was a little miffed that Tomura was more focused on gaming than checking on the sports festival on the TV in order to check on those students who could potentially be his foes in the future, but there was still time for Tomura to grow up a little in order to have AFO to put his plans into motion.

The spy that AFO managed to sneak into U.A. was giving him some information about the students of his hero class and saw that there was an opportunity for him to gain a powerful pawn under his command if he was able to play his cards right.

A lot of people in U.A. and Mustafu had discarded a certain hero student after they had been damaged beyond repair thanks to their lack of discipline being turned against them in the worst moment possible during the USJ.

But while a lot of people only saw a broken person, AFO saw potential. He knew that the good doctor would be able to fix that boy to turn them into a potential asset...but the question was how much AFO would have to destroy Katsuki Bakugo and all that was around him in order to have him completely at his mercy and force him to serve him and his goals?

Chapter Text

Izuku managed to reach the 9th position in the race in the end because he had to stop himself before reaching the pit in order to figure out what he should do to cross the damn thing without sabotaging the attempts of others to finish this race by accident because he was still getting the hang of those flames that he had gained thanks to Combat Development.

Present Mic almost had a slip-up in the commentary booth when he saw how Izuku walked away from the tunnel with his arms and legs on fire and was on the verge of saying something that would complicate the situation for Izuku, but Eraserhead presence in the booth and his quick thinking in order to switch the topic of conversation to something else allowed Present Mic to catch himself in the act before he messed things up and then moved to comment on the performance of other participants.

Nezu was quite clear with Present Mic and how he should conduct himself in his role of a hype man when talking about Izuku in particular, and considering the fact that Nezu decided to share Izuku's files with them all in order to reveal the true reasons for him to be there, then there was little that Present Mic disagreed with those orders as keeping the focus away from Izuku was something that every member of the faculty understood.

The mention of the word nomu in those files and the fact that the All Might killer was referred to as a nomu by those villains of the league during the events of the USJ, made some of the teachers have a knee-jerk reaction in that meeting after the events of the USJ that left the situation in that room to be quite heated until those files were fully disclosed to the members of the faculty that weren't either Vlad King or Eraserhead.

The discussion after those files were read changed to compare the performance of Izuku in the fight against what was supposed to be the finished product to what he was supposed to be a prototype, and it was clear to the teachers after seeing the recordings of how Izuku dealt with saving those classmates of his that were trapped in the conflagration zone and then fighting those villains in order to give them a chance to escape that Izuku was more or less a super prototype in this scenario as while it was clear that Izuku lacked the raw strength that the nomu had to fight All Might on equal footing without having a strength boosting quirk and the capability to fight All Might to a standstill by tanking All Might hits with ease thanks to those quirks that it had. Izuku compensated for said lack of raw strength and endurance by being more versatile than the All Might killer thanks to the quirks he had at his disposal, but also by having the power to think with his head about what he wanted to do in comparison to the nomu who was a mindless creature that only followed orders and lacked any kind of autonomy or any agency of its own.

Eraserhead signaled Present Mic to temporarily turn off the mics in the room in order to talk in private, and considering that the students at the moment were resting for some time before the next event started, then Present Mic complied.

"You saw that...don't you? His arms and legs were covered in fire...and some ice by the looks of it" Present Mic said, opening the conversation with that topic in case that said topic was the reason that Eraserhead wanted to talk with him.

"Yes...Midoriya entered the tunnel seconds before Todoroki managed to use his own quirk to try to close the entrance of that tunnel...and it appears that Combat Development had shown a new functionality that wasn't written in those reports that Nezu showed us." Eraserhead commented. He saw how it took Izuku some time, but he managed to figure out how to use those limbs of his that now were emitting fire to fly in a way in order to bypass the pit that separated him from the last part of the race.

"I know...but it's not like Midoriya is actively hiding information from us... The kid barely knows the number of quirks that were implanted into him aside from those that were in those files, and it's not like he had any real reason to test the extent of what those quirks could do considering the amount of trauma that those quirks and the experimentation that he received to get them caused to him..." Present Mic said, aware that while it would have been easier for them if they were aware of what all those quirks Izuku could do in order to help him better, it was difficult to blame a traumatized kid for not being curious about the full extent of what his quirk could do if said quirk was the source of some serious trauma, a thing that was somewhat common in this world, but Izuku's case was quite extreme.

"Nezu put him in my class for that same reason. The most dangerous thing about Midoriya at this moment is that we do not know what he truly is capable of, and with my quirk, the chances to stop Izuku's quirk from doing something that could potentially damage others against his will for his lack of knowledge...but I massively fucked things up on the first day and now is up to Vlad King to help that kid to figure out things without any kind of safety net..." Eraserhead said, aware now that while his methods and way of conducting himself as a teacher weren't the best, his quirk was what made him the most suited to deal with Izuku at the moment as he was still a danger to others and to himself as long as he didn't know the true extent of his powers, but it was said behavior what pushed Izuku away from class 1-A and soured him out on his presence to the point that even Eraserhead was still confused about why Izuku willingly put himself in danger to save his life during the USJ despite the clear distaste that he had shown for his person would have led Eraserhead to believe that Izuku would have let Kurogiri's suicide boom to get him killed.

The situation with Izuku Midoriya had become a personal failure to Eraserhead as his own biases and opinions had blinded him to the truth in that situation, and there was little that Eraserhead could do to correct that mistake as Izuku had little to no interest in interacting with him unless it was in a situation in which Izuku had no other choice but to talk to him.

The conversation then changed to the performance of the students in the race, and how Shoto Todoroki, a kid that a lot of people thought would reach the last event, instead failed to reach the finish line in time to pass to the next event as the shock of seeing how Izuku's Combat Development made Izuku's body to absorb his ice and turn it into fire from his point of view had delayed Shoto to the point that he ended being out of the competition in the first event. The look of sheer disbelief that Endeavor showed when his son failed to make it to the second event was quite impressive to behold, and there was a certain man whose body was covered with burning scars who was hidden in an alleyway in a city far away from U.A. saw said face on a TV screen alongside the failure of Shoto to pass to the second event and he felt like today was almost a good day in his life despite the agony that he was enduring at the moment.

Their talk ended before the time given for the students to rest was over and then Present Mic and Eraserhead focused on what was going to be the next event in this sports festival...

"A cavalry battle..." Eraserhead said as he was witnessing from the commentator's booth how those students who managed to pass to the second event were forming teams of four to take part in the event.

He watched how Shinso was having a massive amount of trouble forming a team as his actions during that lunch break in which he tried to antagonize Izuku made all the students of class 1-B that Shinso tried to talk to either ignore him or not reply to his words at all in case that he tried to use his quirk on them, a thing that Shinso ended up doing to three students of class 1-A in order to not be disqualified because he was unable to either form or be part of a team.

The behavior of the students of class 1-B when dealing with Shinso was either a showing of solidarity with Izuku after those classmates of his that were near Izuku when Shinso tried to antagonize Izuku told the others what happened to Izuku or it was the result of Izuku's usage of one of his quirks that he had to scan people that allowed him to discern what Shinso's quirk could do and Izuku sharing that knowledge with his classmates to protect them from Shinso's quirk, and no matter the way Eraserhead tried to see thing left a good aftertaste in his mind.

His attempts to prepare Shinso for the hero course in the past months before the start of this school year may have turned Shinso into a competent fighter who was able to fully replicate his fighting style with his capture scarf and managed to improve in the ways of how to use his quirk more effectively, but Eraserhead had ignored the most important part of training a hero student and that was to give them a solid basic foundation that would allow them to not act like a sitting duck when either their quirk or their preferred fighting style wasn't useful in a fight with a villain.

Eraserhead had focused too much on teaching Shinso to fight in a similar way as he did as he considered that it would be what would help him to pass the entrance exam that he had forgotten the fact that the students weren't allowed to rely on support items for the duration of the entrance exam and that was what in a way screwed Shinso up during the exam, the rest was Shinso's own behavior during the exam as he realized that his quirk was useless against those robots and then how he used his quirk to try to sabotage the other participants in his same area with his quirk.

It was hard for Eraserhead to see that his own actions and biased had in a way completely screwed up someone that remembered that much from his own struggles when he was a student in U.A. but Nezu had no mercy for him after he was forced to read Izuku's files and Nezu tore apart the way that he had trained Shinso to prepare him for the hero course while reminding him that he wasn't that committed to the education of the students that had been his responsibility in the past, and aside from that expulsion scare that Nezu had to actively step in order to salvage the situation, those students somehow managed to become heroes despite not benefiting from his attention and care while the one kid that he had been invested to allow him to enter the hero course instead crashed and burned during the entrance exam.

It was almost a cruelly ironic twist of fate in a way that all those kids whose only contribution he had made to their education was his expulsion scare managed to become heroes despite it while the only kid that he put all his efforts into preparing for the hero course fumbled the bag that badly in the moment of truth, but life wasn't fair as Eraserhead liked to say to those kids, and it appears that life decided that now it was his turn to be on the unfair side of that equation as a way of penance for all the times that he used that argument to justify his expulsion scare and his lack of desire to teach those kids in the past.

He saw how Shinso's cavalry team managed to break out of that brainwashing when Kaminari managed to shock all the other participants for a couple of seconds with his Indiscriminate Shock before all that lightning was then absorbed by Izuku, who decided to summon those iron scales around his legs to improvise some footwear as he didn't have an extra pair of shoes at hand, and as it happened to Shoto's ice, Kaminari's lightning was not only redirected at Izuku's location the moment it reached him but also was absorbed by him in a way that made Kaminari to fully pass out instead of frying his own brain like it was supposed to happen when Kaminari overused his quirk. The only reason that those three students of class 1-A didn't turn against Shinso at that exact moment was because there was only one minute remaining for the battle to end and those three prioritized completing the event over screwing Shinso out of spite, but Eraserhead knew that those three weren't going to be that friendly to Shinso in the future in the case that he managed to enter the hero course on his own merits.

When the cavalry battle came to an end, Eraserhead saw how Shinso looked pleased with himself for brainwashing his companions for the event in order to win while ignoring the fact that said event was a team effort, and while his quirk may have allowed him to control his team flawlessly despite his lack of knowledge of those students quirks and skills, he had missed the point in this particular event and had earned the spite of his allies in this battle for the foreseeable future.

Eraserhead may have been someone who preferred to work alone as an underground hero as his way of doing things made working in teams more complicated unless he was working with people that he already knew how to work with, but even he knew that it was a really stupid idea to do things to antagonize other heroes that were working with you as having bad blood with your allies or teammates was a recipe for disaster, but it appeared that Shinso thrived in antagonizing others and that only made the situation even worse for Eraserhead.

How much of Shinso's behavior Eraserhead had ignored while he was training him as he projected his childhood struggles into Shinso and considered that helping him to enter the hero course would in a way allow him to help someone that was in the same boat as he was when he was a student on U.A. to succeed? Eraserhead didn't knew, but he was afraid that this particular lapse in judgment would backfire sooner or later unless he managed to reach Shinso in order to get him to relent and work hard from the beginning to succeed, but considering that their last talk after he scolded him from antagonizing Izuku in the cafeteria ended poorly, with Shinso refusing to listen to reason, then ERaserhead had little hopes for things to work out at all...

Chapter Text

"Another set of bandages that I need to use..." Izuku thought after the cavalry race was over. When his arm made contact with that lightning that Kaminari released and his body reacted in a similar way when Todoroki's ice reached his shoes by absorbing all that electricity, those bandages in his arms were ruined. The saving grace was that he was more mentally prepared in those moments in comparison to when Todoroki tried to ice him, so he managed to get that lightning under control really fast to avoid any potential accident.

Izuku had to quickly run away to the infirmary in the stadium after the event was over in order to ask Recovery Girl for another set of bandages, and now he was being bombarded with questions from Recovery Girl about how he was doing at the moment and if the way that Combat Development had activated when in contact with the ice and lightning generated by quirks had changed something inside of him.

"I don't know. My mind went blank for a couple of seconds when Todoroki's ice enveloped me, and when I was able to think, my arms and legs were on fire and ice, and had some trouble figuring out how to control those things until I figured out how to fly with that fire." Izuku said. While Izuku had come a long way since the day that he managed to escape all those experiments, he developed a phobia for any kind of medical equipment and any kind of room that was meant to perform surgery, and thanks to Nezu's help, Recovery Girl became the closest thing to a doctor or medical specialist that Izuku was willing to interact with without having a panic attack or enter in a panic fueled rage. He was in a way comfortable enough with Recovery Girl to not feel that bent out of shape for being in the infirmary despite all the medical supplies that were there in case there was a need to perform a surgery there, but he still wanted to get away from the infirmary as fast as possible.

"I see..." Recovery Girl said. Izuku may have been someone that in a way didn't need her services in a way as it was clear that Izuku had a self-healing quirk that healed his body, but he was still able to get sick and she managed to help him in the past with those illnesses in order to try to mitigate the fear that he felt when being around medical supplies that weren't bandages.

"I was more or less mentally prepared when Kaminari's lightning reached me, so I managed to get things under control faster...maybe the fact that I covered my feet with those iron scales to compensate for my lack of shoes at the moment and that I was actually in contact with the ground made Combat Development make some of those iron scales on the soles of my feet to dig in the ground to make my body to redirect that electricity into the ground below me or something..." Izuku said. He wasn't in the mood to think about how he managed to do all of that by instinct as he was trying to relax before he was called to take part in the last event of this sports festival.

Said event was a fighting tournament in which the remaining participants that passed to the last event would fight in 1V1 matches until only one student was remaining, and he had the "fortune" to have to fight that purple-haired kid who tried to bait him with insults in order to brainwash him during that incident in the cafeteria almost a month ago.

Izuku knew more or less how that kid's quirk worked thanks to the fact that he was partially affected by it but managed to avoid triggering the quirk by not replying to his mean words thanks to that quirk scanning that worked with his eyes warning him about what Shinso could do with his quirk if he replied to his words, but he was unable to fully develop a counter or adapt to that quirk fully as he wasn't brainwashed in the end so Combat Development wasn't able to develop anything that would help him to counter said quirk.

Izuku didn't want to deal with this sports festival anymore, but was now too deep in to quit without causing a scene so had no choice but to continue taking part in the sports festival.

Izuku had it clear that if his opponent was either a classmate of 1-B or a student of class 1-A, he would have totally put a token resistance before believably throwing the fight in order to not ruin this chance of self-promotion for his foe as Izuku didn't care that much for the internship week or the internship offers that any hero of japan could do to him, but that wasn't the case in this situation.

Shinso Hitoshi was Izuku's opponent in this first round of matches, and Izuku refused to give that prick an easy W so he could impress the crowd. Maybe it was somewhat petty for him to be that spiteful, but considering Izuku's poor opinion of heroes and how big his standards became to consider a hero a good one in his eyes, then there was no way that Izuku would help a bastard that smugly came to berate him and insult him after he just woke up from the events of the USJ to become a hero at all.

The hero business had become overcrowded by people who were only for the fame and the money that the heroic business brought to the table and were too shallow and self-centered to truly understand what a true hero was, so if he had to gatekeep that scumbag to prevent a fake hero to rise from U.A., then Izuku was going to do it no matter what.

"..." Izuku was now in the arena, waiting for Shinso to enter, but it was clear that Shinso was deliberately dragging his feet for some reason because he had been called a couple of times to appear in the last 4 minutes and Shinso had shown himself yet.

The public in the stands and a lot of people were getting impatient as there was no explanation as to why Shinso was wasting everyone's time, and only when Midnight gave Shinso one last call before telling him that if he didn't appear in one minute after this last warning, then he would be disqualified, only then Shinso decided to stop messing around and made his presence know.

Izuku was getting somewhat angsty at the situation as he was thinking that Shinso was planning something as there was no reason for him to look that smug as he walked to the arena despite the fact that he had been warned that he would be disqualified if he insisted on wasting everyone's time. He was now thinking about one story about one of the most famous swordsmen in Japan in the pre-quirk era and how he won a duel with a rival by deliberately wasting his time after scheduling a duel with his rival by waiting until it was late enough to them throw a surprise attack while his rival was distracted, the details were a little fuzzy on Izuku's mind about how that story went, but it came to his head as he saw how Shinso was behaving himself right now.

Eraserhead, who was overseeing the fight from the commentators' booth, was concerned in a way as not even he expected Shinso to act like that and had no idea what his apprentice had in mind when he acted in a way that wasn't acceptable as he saw how Shinso was still showing an arrogant smile despite the fact that Midnight was reproaching him the fact that he had taken so long to reach the arena without any real reason.

He saw how Midnight told him to get into position, and while he wanted to put those concerns away, the moment that he saw how Shinso decided to taunt Izuku the moment that signal to start the fight was given was something that prevented him from doing that.

"You lab rat!" Shinso said, shocking the public and all the people who were watching the TV at the moment. Izuku was frozen into place as he was trying to process those words. He had heard those words from the man who experimented on him while he was kidnapped, and while he didn't think that Shinso was deliberately using those words to get a reaction out of him, Izuku had a clear distaste for those particular words as it brought him unpleasant memories that he tried to forget.

"You should have died in that operation table!" and there was the moment that Izuku not only realized that Shinso was knowingly using those words to harm him but also replied to said taunt by mistake as those insults cut too deep to Izuku to be able to keep himself composed despite the fact that he knew how Shinso's quirk worked.

Eraserhead was horrified to see how Shinso not only had crossed a line there by using those insults, but also to see his attempt to try to get Shinso to leave Izuku alone when they had a private talk after the incident in the cafeteria by revealing part of his past to him with the intention to have Shinso realize that Izuku had been a victim of a deplorable situation and not an obstacle to his dreams to be a hero had backfired in the worst way possible as Shinso had weaponized that information to attack Izuku in a way that would made him to fall under the effects of his quirk.

Shinso was now showing how unfit as a hero he was by showing little to no empathy for the plight of someone else as Shinso believed that those that stood in his way weren't worth any pity or compassion no matter what, and whatever sob story that they had wasn't an excuse to stand in his way.

"Fall unconscious...and relieve the worst painful memory of your life, you monstrous freak!" Shinso said with a hint of malice as he used his quirk in order to not only incapacitate Izuku but also to force him to remember the most damaging memory that he had. He smiled as he saw how Izuku fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings were cut, but when he stopped being so focused on making Izuku suffer and tried to pay attention to his surroundings, he found himself strapped to an operation table.

"...!" Shinso tried to speak, but he was unable to talk. He was barely able to see at all, but he could distinguish some strange machinery and medical supplies that were on a small table near him.

The footsteps of two individuals caught Shinso's attention and then he saw how a bald old man with a mustache and a lab coat and a taller man with a tuxedo whose face was obscured got near him.

"You think you are fit to be a hero if you behave like this?" The man whose face was obscured said. Shinso was too scared now to think what was going on as he saw how the old man was preparing some of those machines and medical supplies in order to do something.

"You may have managed to affect Izuku's mind with your quirk and managed to hijack his mind in order to make him suffer...but it's a shame that your devious plan failed to take into account one single detail." the taller man said, Shinso was unable to understand what was going on, but maybe that had something to do with the fact that he had used his brainwashing quirk with Izuku.

"Izuku is unable to tap into all the quirks that were implanted in him not only because he doesn't want to..." The tall man said as he looked at Shinso with contempt.

"But there is something else, something that was born in Izuku's mind as the pain and experimentation that he received ravaged his mind, something that gatekeeps all the power that he ended up possessing, something that keeps his worst memories locked up and partially suppresses his emotions to prevent him from being overwhelmed by all that trauma...a little something that decided to stand as the only thing that keeps Izuku from snapping and give in to his worst impulses." The man's words confused Shinso, but it's not like he cared about what Shinso was feeling at the moment. The old man, who was doctor Garaki, was now ready to start the surgery that permanently damaged Izuku's body, and as Shinso saw how the man was getting a device to chop off his legs, The tall man, whose true identity was AFO but spoke words from someone else, decided to talk one last time before Shinso experienced true pain.

"You wished to Izuku to relieve the most painful memory of his life, but it is going to be you the one that will endure it instead." AFO? said, this AFO was just an apparition born from the memories of Izuku during his years as a lab rat for Doctor Garaki, and while they never interacted, Izuku was able to catch a glimpse of the man even if he was heavily sedated, AFO was in fact present in the day that Garaki heavily mutilated Izuku and implanted those nomufied bodyparts in Izuku's body, but those words that AFO were speaking to Shinso right now...those words were never spoken by AFO at all...

"The only saving grace that Izuku had in those moments was that he was heavily sedated, so while he never screamed as he was cut open, his body and mind remembered that pain. " AFO said as Shinso was helpless as he saw how Garaki removed his legs.

"You will now be in Izuku's place during those agonizing moments, unable to scream, move, or even plead for mercy as his body was irreparably damaged, but while Izuku can count on me to allow him to forget that pain...you will not be so lucky." Those were the last words of AFO as Shinso was then forced to relieve Izuku's memories about how he was heavily modified. Shinso was unable to scream as his body was damaged as Garaki rendered him armless and legless before moving to take his eyes out.

Not even when everything went dark from Shinso's perspective as his eyes were removed marked the end of that memory that he was forced to experience. He wanted so badly to make Izuku suffer for gatekeeping him from the hero course just by being there, and he used the information that Eraserhead shared with him in order to find the correct words to provoke Izuku into answering him so he could use his quirk on him. the reward for his success to force Izuku under his control was to find out that there was something inside Izuku's mind that not only didn't appreciate what he did to Izuku, but had the power to make Shinso regret using his quirk on Izuku by making him suffer by forcing him to relieve Izuku's worst memory at its fullest.

Shinso was only able to pray for this nightmare to end as his body was now in pain despite the fact that he couldn't see anything, but he wasn't sure if there was going to be any kind of mercy for him now...

Chapter Text

Panic spread through the whole stadium the moment that Shinso Hitoshi suddenly started to scream in agony and terror a couple of seconds after he used his quirk to brainwash Izuku into remembering the worst experience that he had faced in his mind as he felt unconscious on the ground.

Midnight was quick to react in time and used her quirk to release a pink gas that heavily sedated Shinso to prevent him from screaming himself into muteness, but this situation only put Shinso's standing with the school in a more precarious situation as not only did he had shown a clear villainous behavior when he mocked and insulted Izuku in a way that managed to get him to respond, but Shinso was aware of the right words to provoke Izuku as Eraserhead shared with him a more safe version of his past to him in order to make Shinso leave Izuku be and stop blaming him from being forced to enter the hero course the legit way the way that he had used said knowledge could potentially open a massive can of worms that would complicate Izuku's stay on U.A.

Nezu gave the order to temporarily cut the transmission after Shinso started to scream in agony in order to try to get the situation under control while also trying to find ways to calm down the people in the stadium that was getting quite restless after Shinso's poor showing and subsequent screaming fit didn't help at all.

For the time being, Nezu decided that said match ended in a draw and ordered Eraserhead to go to the infirmary in order to use Erasure on both Izuku and Shinso in case Shinso's quirk had triggered a quirk that was lying dormant inside Izuku and said quirk was the cause of the accelerated mental breakdown that Shinso showed.

Nezu saw that Eraserhead was looking at him with a clear expression of guilt in his eyes and while he was going to ask him about what he was feeling so guilty about at a later date, now what mattered was to make sure that both kids were fine.

Nezu may be quite upset at Shinso's villainous behavior and showing that had ended up causing this situation, but Shinso was still his student and Nezu had a responsibility to all the students of U.A., even those whose actions warranted being kicked out of U.A. with a black mark.

"...Ahh!" Shinso woke up in a cold sweat, the memories and feelings that he was forced to experience when he tried to use those things to damage Izuku had scarred his mind in ways that he wasn't aware of in the moment, but he had barely time to ponder on those things as he heard the sounds of footsteps reached his ears and that made him to panic a little.

"Shinso...what had you done?" Eraserhead said, he had used his quirk on both Izuku and Shinso in case that they both had fallen under the effects of one of the quirks that Izuku had that he wasn't aware of, and while Izuku quickly woke up after the end of the sports festival and decided to go home, Shinsoo wasn't so lucky and took two hours for him to wake up.

"..." Shinso was unable to reply to Eraserhead's words of concern and disappointment as his mind was still trapped in a way in those memories that he was forced to endure. The pain of being torn apart was too real, and the sensation of feeling how his ability to move his arms and legs were violently taken away from him, and how he was robbed of the ability to see was something that would break anyone.

Shinso didn't even pay attention to Nezu's sudden appearance in the room and how he was told that he was going to be expelled from U.A. with a black mark because of what he did to Izuku, and how he did it in such a villainous way that it could incur a jail sentence because his mind was to focused on trying to cope with that experince, what while not being real in the sense that his limbs and eyes weren't taken away from him, the pain of lossing them in such a way was too real for him to ingore.

"...!? I can't see anything at all..." Shinso said as Nezu finished talking to him about what was going to happen to him and then Shinso realized that he was unable to see anything at all. He was sure that his eyes weren't damaged at all, but the only thing that he was seeing, if one could call it, was endless darkness.

Recovery Girl heard those words and tried to perform some quick tests on him in order to see if something happened to him, and while those tests showed that Shinso's eyes worked just fine, it made Nezu and the others think that whatever thing that caused shinso to scream in agony during that fight with izuku had traumaticed him to the point that his own mind made him think that he was blind.

It was too early to make any kind of speculation, but Nezu decided, for the time being, to put Shinso's expulsion on hold in order to find out what happened after Shinso successfully brainwashed Izuku, which had ended up with Shinso screaming like a madman seconds later after ordering Izuku to lose consciousness and relieve his worst memory of his life, and had somehow made Shinso go blind.

Things had just gotten more complicated.

A couple of days had passed since the sports festival, and while Izuku did want to move on from what happened because the last thing he wanted was to answer uncomfortable questions about what Shinso said to him to get him to reply to his words. It was clear on the faces of his classmates that some of those uncomfortable questions were in their minds.

"Sorry...but I won't answer any questions that you have if they are related to what that bastard told me during the sports festival..." Izuku said, trying to get that issue out of the way as quickly as possible for the moment. Izuku wasn't naive enough to think that this would simply mean that they won't be satisfied by this answer and that they would in the future try to make those questions, but as long as Izuku could buy some time before the inevitable conversation happened in which Izuku knew that he would cave in and answer those questions, then the better for him.

There was a clear sense of dread in Izuku's mind as he believed that if he fully revealed the truth about his situation and his powers, then those same people that had been so nice to him in the past would then treat him like a monster because having more that one quirk was unheard off and Izuku felt somewhat ashamed of being the partialy broken person that he was now.

How he perceived himself and how he believed that others would perceive him if he revealed to them the truth was his worst enemy in this case, as it blinded him to the possibility of thinking that maybe there were people that was willing to accept him for who he was now, but the fear of rejection keep him scared enought to not think about it.

His classmates were somewhat disappointed that they weren't going to get an answer about what Shinso was talking about when he used those nasty words to insult him during their fight in the fighting tournament, but they knew that Izuku was someone that refused to talk about his past and easily walked away from any conversation should that topic came to the confevsation, so they accepted the fact taht their curiosity wasn't going to be satisfied at the moment and then waited for Vlad King to talk with them about how they performed during the sports festival and the intership offers that they had received from those heroes that saw them in action.

Izuku was one of those students who had received no internship at all, as the fact that what his quirk could do to the public wasn't revealed at all alongside a small defamation campaign that Endeavor ran against Izuku out of spite for Todoroki's loss during the first event of the sports festival under the belief that Izuku sabotaged Shoto's performance had dettered a lot of heroes that were considering to send him an internship from sending izuku an intenrship, but the joke was on Endeavor as Izuku wanted nothing to do with the internship and his petty smear campain of his worked on Izuku's favor.

And the sad thing was that said act of pettiness with Izuku was pointless in a way because Shoto's failing to impress the crowd during the sports festival because he failed to complete the obstacle race meant that Shoto had no choice but to go with Endeavor and his agency during the internship week as he was the only person that sent an internship offer to him, so Endeavor not only was able to keep Shoto under his thumb, but also had a new way to motivate Shoto to improve and try to force him to use his fire by having him to focus on his anger at the way that Izuku managed to get him to fail the obstacle race. But the family drama that the whole Todoroki family had wasn't something that Izuku had to concern himself with.

Izuku hoped to kick back and relax a little in this internship week as his lack of internship offers and Nezu's decision to respect Izuku's desire to not take part in those things meant that he would have a more relaxed week than every other student of the hero course, as he would just stay in U.A., minding his business while occasionally training while the others made their first steps in the hero world to fulfill their dreams to become heroes in the future, but there was always a chance for things to not go as planned.

"A retired hero who taught All Might..." Izuku said, Nezu had called him to talk about having him to do an internship with an hero who had some expereince as a teacher in a hero school to help him to gain more control about how he used his quirks and more confidence in himself as he fought as his performance during sparring matches in the past month showed him to be way to reluctant to harm his classmates.

"Yes, I know that this is not what you wanted to hear...but it would be the best for you to learn how to properly apply your strength in a fight without having the fear to go overboard and injure someone. Your performance during the USJ and against the nomu shows that you can be quite dangerous in a fight when pushed into a corner, but I'm afraid that you won't be able to intimidate all your enemies into giving up like you did with those villains in the conflagration zone, so learning to properly control your strenght so you could regulate yourself in a fight to not rely on your endurance or intimidation tactics would help you on the long run." Nezu admitted.

"..." Izuku looked at Nezu while processing what he had said to him, and while he hated to admit it, Nezu had a point about him having to learn how to control himself better in order to expand his options, not only in a fight, but also in his day-to-day life.

"But of course, you don't need to accept this offer right away. We could arrange a meeting with that retired hero in the future so you could get a more effective training, but since..." Nezu tried to say, but Izuku simply nodded his head and then told him that he was going to do that.

"Alright then, I will go with this retired hero to train if that is what you think would help me, Nezu. You had been in my corner all the time since I was rescued by you after I escaped, and you had always looked out for me, so I will trust your judgment on this one." Nezu was happy to see that Izuku was willing to go along with this petition only because his trust in him was strong enough to have him put aside whatever doubts Izuku had in mind about this sudden arrangement.

"Thank you. I know that you aren't that eager to take part in the internship week. So, despite this being an internship in all but name, you will be focusing more on training yourself over doing any heroic duty." Nezu said. His mind was still thinking about what happened to Shinso Hitoshi, who had gone blind as a result of said memory of Izuku's most painful experience, that a hidden quirk in Izuku had forced Shinso to endure in retaliation with all the damage that said situation caused to Izuku for trying to damage Izuku's psyche with said memory, and how that showed that Izuku had some hidden quirks that were laying around in his mind that weren't active at the moment because there was 'something' inside Izuku's mind that was gatekeeping the access to said quirks fo Izuku's own safety if what they managed to figure out from Shinso's testimony about what happened to him was to be taken into account.

Nezu needed to find a way to get Izuku to actively uncover said knowledge on his own initiative, and the best way that Nezu thought to make it happen was to make Izuku more confident in himself in order to make said 'something' to ease up on the amount of power that it's preventing Izuku from using it, because the last thing they needed was to not have Izuku's full arsenal of quirks fully figured out.

For a lot of people, that kind of decision could be considered one that was made in order to prepare countermeasures in case Izuku went rogue or something like that, but Nezu and the part of U.A. faculty that were aware of his delicate situation were trying to help Izuku.

Nezu hoped that this one week with Gran Torino would kickstart Izuku's development into a more confident person, but only time would tell if this was the correct choice or not...

Chapter Text

"So...this is the place, huh?" Izuku said. He had reached the location where the retired hero lived, who was 45 minutes away from a particular bullet train station in Yamanashi Prefecture, and Izuku could think that this building had seen better days.

That building looked quite run-down and abandoned in a way as some windows were broken and pieces of the building looked like they had fallen off and were never substituted. Above the front door, there was a sign that said "Welcome" that looked like it was about to fully fall off. The building is also surrounded by a tall fence and gates. All and all, Izuku would have expected this kind of building to be found in a poorer area of a city that would be inhabited by people in precarious situations or those with shady characters not at 45 minutes of a bullet train station, but maybe there was a hidden meaning or something that Izuku was failing to graps.

Izuku then checked the door and saw that it wasn't locked, and while it would be almost a criminal action to take that as a sign to enter, Izuku decided to do something else.

"..." Izuku closed his eyes, and then he focused on his sense of hearing, activating Echolocation in order to try to gain information about what was on the other side of the door with the sounds that he was able to pick up before doing something drastic.

"...Okay then." Izuku said, Mental Map reacting to the information that Echolocation had picked up in order to get a better picture in his mind about what was going on.

"...!? That can't be good..." Izuku said. Mental Map had fully translated the info that Echolocation had picked up from him, and he had seen that there was a smaller, older man who was lying on the ground, he wasn't moving at all, but Izuku could hear that he was still breathing and his heart was still beating.

Izuku wasn't sure what that could mean, but maybe that hero had suffered a stroke or something, and he was lying on the ground, alone and with no one to check on him.

"I guess I have no choice..." Izuku said as he took a deep breath before deciding his next course of action, he wasn't sure about what he could do at this situation, but the first thing he could do was to check on that man's condition in order to make sure that he was fine or was suffering, only then he would think what to do next.

"Wait...I can call someone to help me in a case like this!" Izuku thought to himself as he remembered that he had the phone number of someone who was more informed about these kinds of situations, as it was part of their job to know about those things in some way.

He picked up his phone and started to dial that number in order to give them a call for help in order to relying on their wisdom and experience to guide him in this potentially critical situation. Izuku hoped that his call wouldn't catch them at a bad moment or something like that...

"..." As Gran Torino was lying on the ground of his living room, not being injured or anything like that, but pretending to pass out in order to gauge Izuku's reaction, He started to think back about all the information that Nezu shared with him about Izuku Midoriya and how the mammal, for the first time in his life as far as gran torino was concerned, showed a genuine empathy and protective side to a human being, but considered that Izuku Midoriya had gone trouth a similar experince as Nezu did in the past, then maybe Nezu was more capable to put himself in Izuku's shoes as he had been also experimented upon.

Toshinori brought to him, and a Sir Nighteye that forced his way into their meeting because he had some ulterior motives, the information about Izuku Midoriya and how he was in a way connected to that All Might killer that gave him so much trouble, by the fact that both Izuku and the nomu appeared to be experimented upon by the same person, and how both the Nomu and Izuku had more than one quirk inside of them.

That fact was what made the siren alarm in their heads go on as that made them realize that AFO wasn't as dead as All Might though it was when they both fought to the death in the past, and All Might emerged victorious but critically injured from that epic bout.

The LOV spoke about how that nomu was designed to be the All Might killer, and in the documents that were inside U.A. and under Recovery Girl's watchful eye, the term All Might killer and hero killer were recurrent terms that appeared there as Izuku talked about the few times that he was able to hear something despite being heavily sedated almost all the time, and he remembered snippets of conversation between two individuals that had showed some interest in turning Izuku into a hero killing weapon that could even kill All Might himself if those snippets of conversations that Izuku managed to remember and were writen in those documents were taking into account.

And while All Might brought him the idea of looking out for him with the intention of giving him some help with his situation in order to have him discover whatever quirks were lying dormant that weren't sealed off by something akin to a split personality that was inside Izuku's mind that prevented anything that could damage izuku's mind from being used unless it was necesary, the fact that Sir Nighteye forced his way in that meeting and also heard that information from All Might's mouth and read those files as well ended up with some conflicted opinions.

Sir Nighteye was one who, while telling them that they shouldn't try to help Izuku get better control over himself, his reasoning was less cruel than one could expect. He pretty much told them that while Izuku's past was tragic and his situation was quite unfortunate, they needed to focus on finding AFO to finally put an end to his reign of terror as it was clear that he had survived, and that training Izuku could be a waste of time that could backfire in case that Izuku was something akin to a sleeper agent from AFO that genuinely didn't know about that detail and that could spell doom for them. For Sir Nighteye, the best thing to do was to first get rid of AFO and whatever people he had in his corner before getting Izuku the help he needed, as only then would they be sure that there was no danger to help Izuku with his quirk issues.

All Might, for his part, felt that the hero society had failed Izuku long enough, and as far as All Might was concerned, Izuku was a victim of AFO's machinations, and one of the few victims that they could save from the damage that AFO inflicted upon him, so that means that they needed to try their best to help him no matter what.

Gran Torino in the end decided to go with Toshinori's request despite agreeing in a way with Sir Nighteye's logic, as the fact that Toshinori spoke about Izuku being one of the few victims of AFO's villainy that they could save spurred something inside the old and quite jaded hero that moved him to agree with Toshinori's request despite his own feelings on the matter.

Maybe it was guilt, as his inability to help Nana fight against AFO and having to let her fend for herself against that menace, with the only help he could give to her was to put her son to safety by getting him away from her, and then train Toshinori before he went to America made him to feel that he needed to to make that extra effort for a kid that had suffered in a way at the hands of that monster, or maybe it was becuase he wanted to think that if he helped Izuku with this, then he would at least honor Nana's sacrifice by helping a victim of AFO to find a way to get his life back together.

But the fact of the matter was that he was now waiting for Izuku to enter his home and see how he would react to finding him on the ground as he faked being unconscious.

"Yes...I am seeing him right now..." Gran Torino heard Izuku's voice, and it appeared that he was talking to someone else, but he was sure that Izuku was alone now.

"No...he is on the ground, he appears to be unconscious...but his heartbeat and breathing are quite normal from what I can hear..." Those words caught the hero by surprise, but then he remembered that one of those documents talked about a hearing-based quirk and how it allowed Izuku to pick up a lot of information with only picking the sound around him in a large area, and it apeared that he had used said quirk to figure out that he was laying on the ground, but instead of rushing in, he was talking with the phone with someone that apeared to be a paramedic or something like that.

"So what should I do about this, Recovery Girl?" That definitely almost made the hero panic, as he didn't see that coming. While he was willing to consider that Izuku's decision to call an ambulance to come here to properly deal with what he belived that had happened in his house or that he was talking someone with medical expertise to try to identify what had happened to him before calling an ambulance a cautious yet smart move, Gran Torino never expected for Izuku to actualy having Recovery Girl on a speed dial.

It appeared to him that his attept to test Izuku's reaction had ended up evolving in an unespected situation that could grow out of control even harder unless he put an end to this test and got the situation under control before All Might himself ended up coming here to check on him if he heard from Recovery Girl's mouth that Izuku had found him passed out on the ground of his home...

"..." Gran Torino was now getting an earful from Recovery Girl after he picked up Izuku's smartphone to talk with the heroine for his attempt to test Izuku's reaction by faking being unconscious on the ground, and aside from getting quite the tongue-lashing from the old heroine, Gran Torino walked away unscathed from this mess while preventing the situation from getting out of control.

Maybe he should have tried something else to test Izuku's reactions, because Izuku was able to quickly gain a lot of information from his surroundings by sound, but the damage was already done, and the only thing Gran Torino could do was to smooth things over to make sure that Izuku was willing to work with him.

Nezu had warned about how Izuku became quite adverse to interacting with Eraserhead after their first interaction during the first day of class, and how Izuku was the kind of person who took a lot of time and positive interaction for him to be comfortable with. And while Izuku was willing to give Gran Torino a chance because Nezu vouched for him, if Gran Torino did something that Izuku found unacceptable, then Izuku would close himself off to him and would refuse to deal with him anymore if he could help it.

Izuku simply stared at him, almost as if he was sizing him up to see if Gran Torino was someone worth his trust or someone like Eraserhead, who should be someone that Izuku needed to stay away from.

Izuku was willing to give Gran Torino a chance despite the fact that he faked being unconscious on the ground as he wanted to believe that the whole testing his reaction to a situation like that was something genuine over overthinking that Gran Torino wanted to pull an Eraserhead on him, but he had one week to see if this small incident was just a forgivable mistake from the hero's part or the red flag that izuku needed to pay attention to know that Gran Torino wasn't worth his trust.

With that said, Izuku wanted to put this incident behind him and try to see what this week with Gran Torino had in store for him. Sure, Izuku may be with a hero that wasn't really on active duty, and the most that Izuku was going to do was to work with the man to get better control of his body and quirks in general, but after those past months in the hero course, in witch the USJ incident happened and then the mess of the sport festival that occured a couple of weeks ago, Izuku knew better that to expect for things to go as painlessly as he wanted for things to go and should brace himself for whatever incident that it could happen to him in the near future.

Sure, thinking like that in a way made him think that he was getting as self-centered as Bakugo was, but considering the fact that he read that Stain had recently attacked a hero in Hosu during the sports festival and his overall luck, then maybe expecting for things to go badly for him should be a default thing for Izuku to do considering his situation...

Chapter Text

"..." Gran Torino was now moving as fast as he could with his quirk active trought the rooftops of the city in order to test in a way how effective was Echolocation and Mental Map to have an idea of how far Izuku's reach with those quirks were and how effective Izuku could be in a situation in which he needed to pursue a villain that tried everything they could to slip away from the heroes and police, and considering that Izuku had been able to easily keep track of him for a couple of hours even though they were separated by a couple of miles, then Gran Torino was starting to see that whatever plan AFO had in mind with Izuku when he managed to turn him into what he is today was quite effective and dangerous the more he tought about it.

Izuku was able to perfectly track people that were in his range of hearing as far as Gran Torino knew, and the moment he got his sights on you, then Izuku was able to know what your quirk was and what it could do thanks to that unamed quirk that relied on his sight, and then you add Combat Development and how it made Izuku to develop ways to either counter a quirk used at him or to gain a way to use it, then you had someone with the potential to be the kind of hero killer that could put him in a level similar to Stain. Gran Torino didn't know if Izuku had a shapeshifting quirk or anything like that to make him able to avoid being detected, but that made Izuku have a lot of potential to be more dangerous than he was right now.

But there was something that made Gran Torino think that, despite everything, Izuku wasn't as dangerous as Sir Nighteye and he believed.  Sure, Izuku had the potential to be a hero killer that could easily surpass the likes of Stain or the nastiest villains that made a career by murdering heroes, but aside from his desire to get revenge on the people who turned him into who he was now, Izuku was content to not bother other people and prefered to mind his own business.

For the time being, what Gran Torino had seen from Izuku did a lot ot dispel some of his doubts about him, but they had spent three days together now and there was still some time for Gran Torino to test Izuku even further to finaly put to rest whatever doubt he had in the boy and to see if there was realy something that he could do to help him. But what could he do in that regard?

"Gran Torino. Two people are reaching the door and are about to knock on the door." Izuku said. They were training Izuku's reflexes by having him avoid Gran Torino's attempts to hit him with his quirk active, and since Izuku was using Echolocation to try to track Gran Torino when he was going fast, he managed to hear how those individuals were about knock on his door based on the movements that their arms and hands were doing based on the sound that he was picking up, the fact that seconds later the door of Gran Torino's appartment was being hit after Izuku told that just confirmed Izuku's statement.

"Alright then, let's stop for a while. You stay here and take a break, and  I will see who they are." Gran Torino said, aware that the kind of people who came to his home and knocked on the door were either All Might or someone from the mail, so he was surprised to see that it was Sir Nighteye and his apprentice, Mirio Togata, the ones who were on his door.

"Gran Torino..." Sir Nighteye said.

"What do you want?" Gran Torino replied, unsure if the man had good intentions with this visit or not. After all, Sir Nighteye was the one who was opposed to Izuku being trained at all.

"I was curious about what you could say about that boy now that you had been training him for a couple of days." Sir Nighteye said. Gran Torino believed that he had some ulterior motives to be here,  but he kept that to himself for the moment.

"He has potential...but it is too soon to make any kind of final judgement." Gran Torino said.

"I see...but that is why I brought Mirio here. He is a more suitable opponent to test that boy from my point of view." Gran Torino heard Sir Nighteye's words and then started to think that maybe Sir Nighteye wanted to see how his personal apprentice, the one who would eventually carry OFA if All Might fully committed to that decision, would fare against a supposed All Might killer in case that Izuku was an sleeper agent or something like that.

"Very well...let's get this over with. I will talk with the boy to inform him about having a little spar with Mirio. But it would be a one-time thing, you got that?" Gran Torino said, aware that Sir Nighteye could get quite persistent in getting things done in his way, and it would be for the best to get this proposal of his done as quickly as possible to have him out of the way.

Gran Torino wasn't sure what Sir Nighteye had told Mirio about Izuku before dragging him to this place, but he hoped that Mirio was able to behave properly in this situation, because if Sir Nighteye wanted to use Mirio to test Izuku for his own personal reasons, then Gran Torino was going to use this test to gauge if Mirio was worthy of having OFA given to him.

"..." Izuku was looking at the blond buff guy that Gran Torino had brought into the room to have a friendly spar with him, and was feeling quite wary about him for some reason.

There was something in the pit of his stomach that made him feel that this friendly spar wasn't as friendly as it appeared...or that was his stomach rumbling because he was starting to get hungry, but the moment that Gran Torino gave the signal to start, Izuku saw how the guy literaly phased trough the ground like they were in a videogame and the ground that he was on had lost the capacity of detect colission and swaloed the guy.

Izuku more or less believed that said action had to be part of his quirk, but the fact that he was unable to hear him made him unable to track him at the moment.

He remembered what Gran Torino told him about how he, in a way, relied too much on those two quirks to guide himself even in those sparring matches that they had the past days, and while it wasn't a bad thing, Izuku needed to learn how to fight or act withouth overly relying on Mental Map and Echolocation to keep track on everythting that was near him.

So Izuku relaxed and decided to turn both Mental Map and Echolocation off for a while, as he considered that they may not be that helpful in this sparring match, and tried to let his natural instincts do the talking in this fight.

"POWER!" But no matter how much Izuku wanted to rely on them, Izuku had been carried on both in the USJ and the sports festival by all those experiments that were done to him and those quirks that were implanted on him, so he was barely able to react at all when Mirio came from one side of the room at an impresive speed, almost like he was being pushed out the ground, and ate that punch to the stomach while only being able to see how Mirio quickly reached him.

Izuku was pushed against a wall in that empty room that they were using to spar, and while Gran Torino was somewhat shocked to see how strong that punch Mirio threw was, and was about to call off the sparring match, he was surprised to see that Izuku quickly got up from the ground and then told Mirio that he hadn't hear no bell yet so he wasn't out of the fight.

That show of attitude caught Gran Torino by surprise as Izuku never showed anything like that in the past days, but as he saw that Izuku wasn't going to back down, he decided to let the sparring match continue.

That ended evolving in almost a two-hour session in which Mirio was wailing on Izuku, who was unable to even retaliate, but no matter how many times Mirio attacked Izuku and pushed him into the ground or a wall, Izuku simply got back up and continued to fight, slowly, but surely making progress during that sparring match as Izuku was starting to figure out how to fight without overly relying on Echolocation and Mental Map to clue him in about where his enemies were.

2 out of every 5 blows that Mirio threw at Izuku were either avoided or parried on the last second, and those that Izuku ended up taking weren't keeping him down for too long, as Izuku was starting to get up from the ground faster and faster each time that he was pushed down.

"I must...stand up...on my own!" Izuku was saying during the whole fight, every time that he was pushed into a wall or onto the ground, and while Gran Torino suspected that Sir Nighteye had told Mirio to barely hold back against Izuku, it was clear that Mirio's showing of power to try to completely defeat Izuku only made Izuku struggle even more fiercely than before.

"You are quite resilient, Midoriya. But maybe it's time to put an end to this sparring match." Mirio said. He had been barely informed about Izuku's situation, as not even Sir Nighteye was going to reveal the truth about Izuku's situation to Mirio, but the most that he knew was that Sir Nighteye had told him that he would be someone that he could go a little harder than usual, as he was able to take it. And considering how they had been locked in combat for two hours, with none of his punches being able to knock out Izuku at all, then said statement of his mentor about Izuku being able to take a lot of punishment for him barely holding back was quite true.

"Sure...one last hit to end this fight. Hit me and you win, but if you fail, I win this sparring match, sounds good?" Izuku said. Mirio simply nodded at Izuku's request, and then he phased through the ground to try one last time to hit Izuku.

"..." Izuku closed his eyes this time, waiting for the moment that Mirio appeared to dodge it.

"POWER!" Mirio appeared from the ground and tried to punch Izuku one last time. But this time, Izuku was ready.

"Gotcha!" Izuku opened his eyes and then managed to catch Mirio's fist with his open hand far earlier than he had shown that he could, and blocked that blow.

"..." Mirio looked at Izuku, surprised that he managed to do that, and while there was a tense atmosphere in the room after Izuku managed to catch Mirio's fist, Izuku managed to dismantle said  atmosphere with his next words.

"Ohh...I told you that if you hit me, then you win, and if I dodged it, then I won, but I blocked the attack. Do we call it a draw and call it a day?" Izuku said.

"...Fair enough." Mirio said and then stopped fighting Izuku.

"..." Gran Torino saw how Mirio and a Sir Nighteye that was looking almost lost in his thoughts walked away from his house and then decided to talk to Izuku about what had going on with that spar and why he was so obssesed to keep fighting even though he barely managed to do anything at all during the first hour.

"You told me that I needed to learn how to stand on my own in a fight without relying on Echolocation and Mental Map to guide myself, and since that boy was able to safely dodge my attacks because of what his quirk could do, and his attacks weren't that strong despite all the effort that he put into them, then I decided to try to learn how fight for real, by fighting that boy as many times as needed to slowly improve my instincts to react on a fight without the usage of Echolocation and Mental Map to tip me off about what was comming to me, and that had been an...enligthening experince to say the least." Izuku admitted.

"I see..." Gran Torino was only able to say that. What Izuku told him made sense in a way, but the way that Izuku chose to do that was more complicated than it needed to be.

"I'm hungry now...those guys came an hour before it was lunch, so I kind of forgot that I was hungry for two hours..." Izuku said, snapping Gran Torino from his train of thought.

"Fine, we are going to eat something now. You had done far more training than I intended for you to do today, so if you want to rest for the remainder of the day, then I will allow it this time..." Gran Torino said, trying to put an end to this topic to move to something else. He hoped that the way this sparring session had developed and that strange showing of attitude for Izuku would help him in the long run, despite the motives that Sir Nighteye had behind the arrangement for this impromptu sparring match.

Chapter Text

The last day of the internship week was almost coming to an end, and while some of the kids of the hero course in U.A. had spent a good time during their internships, others had gone through a less-than-stellar experience.

Itsuka Kendo and Momo Yaoyorozu had spent their whole week acting like unpaid models who worked for Uwabami's benefit by using their good looks to take part in some commercials for her products, with only one small patrol that ended with the girls seeing how Uwabami's enjoyed a little too much acting like a celebrity while receiving the adoration of the people.

There were more students than had a bad internship with the hero they had chosen for this week...but now we are going to focus on two particular students from class 1-A, whose choices, in a way, would put them at the central stage.

The first one was Shoto Todoroki, who was forced to take the internship offer that his father, the hero Endeavor, made to him because he failed to make it to the second event of the sports festival despite being considered by the public as someone that would reach the last event burned out a lot of the hype that his position as the son of the number two hero of japan had given to him. Also, there was the fact that Endeavor's smear campaign against Izuku was filled with comments about how Endeavor was going to train his son more seriously to have him redeem himself for his blunder during the sports festival, and that dettered a lot of the heroes that were willing to give Shoto a chance despite his massive fuck up.

Shoto Todoroki had gone through this internship through an experience that he would call business as usual, as he dealt with his dad's training methods, with Shoto actively refusing to use his fire out of spite for the man who made him miserable. But the sight of Izuku being encased by his ice, and then to see how those arms and legs of his were covered by fire and a small amount of ice, just made Shoto more resolute with his decision to deny his fire side of his quirk.

Maybe it was petty, but the sight of Izuku showing an expression of comfort when those flames surrounded his arms and legs enraged Shoto even more because the sight of someone feeling something akin to comfort by the sight of a fire quirk was almost the kind of personal insult that Shoto couldn't forgive at all.

He was now in Hosu, dragged by his dad and his sidekicks in order to help in the search for the hero killer that had taken the city of Hosu as his new hunting ground in his quest to kill fake heroes, and considering the fact that Shoto resented his father and how his mad quest to surpass All Might ruined his childhood, then he was now quite upset at the fact that he could be forced into a situation in witch he could help his dad in a way to increase his fame.

The second student was none other than Tenya Iida, who had taken an internship with a low ranked hero even though he had a lot of good offers not only because for his impresive performance during the sports festival, but also because he was part of a family whose family name had been in the hero business for years, but the reasons that made him to take that internship were less that heroic.

Tenya Iida was in Hosu because he wanted to find and kill Stain. After all, Stain had permanently injured his brother in a way that prevented him from being a hero again, and also because he wasn't able to properly cope with the situation that he found himself now in a way that his mind woundn't made him belive that trying to murder Stain for what he did to his brother was anything but a poorly tought idea that was born out of his grief and anger for the injustice that his brother had suffered thanks to the actions of Stain, and not a childish plan that could get him killed if he was unlucky or kicked out of the hero course if he was lucky because he was intending to go full vigilante to deal with the hero killer out of his desire for revenge.

The stage was set, all the actors were in position, and thanks to the machinations of AFO, the city of Hosu would become a literal war zone as he would release low-tier nomus to cause some mayhem by destroying property and fighting heroes while letting Stain continue his business in order to take advantage of the hero killer's reputation to increase the fame of the LOV to further his agenda.

But there was always a chance for things not to go as planned, and all it took was for someone to be in the right place at the right time...

"Damn it..." Eraserhead said. He was now running as fast as he could through the streets of Hosu, the city that was now under attack by an army of nomus that were giving the hero killer enough cover that would allow him to escape the ongoing manhunt that was put together with the intention to capture Stain and put a stop to his bloodly crusade for good.

The reason that he was there was because Manual, the hero that Iida chose to go with during his internship week, decided to warn them about how the faculty's suspicions about why he chose to be with him were true, and Eraserhead decided to go to Hosu to stop Iida from trying to fight Stain even if that meant that Eraserhead would had to drag him out of Hosu if needed, but the apearence of all those nomus and the destruction that they were causing only made the situation more complicated.

Time was running low, and considering that the tracking device that Eraserhead was using to locate Iida's position showed that Iida had decided to run away from Manual, then Eraserhead's feelings of frustration were justified in a way.

Eraserhead just pushed his frustration aside in order to focus on his task and managed to speed up in order to reach Iida seconds before Stain decided to execute him. Stain's blade was ready to strike, and Eraserhead quickly prepared his scarf to try to reach Stain, but then something happened.

"OH FUCK...!" The voice of a panicked Izuku Midoriya reached the ears of the people that was in that alleyway, and then, a winged nomu that was tightly hugging Izuku landed on top of Stain. The landing was strong enough to cause a lot of noise, and when the dust that the said crash landing created dissipated, they saw how Stain and the winged nomu, who looked somewhat burned for some reason, were incapacitated, while Izuku looked somewhat dazed and sweaty for a couple of seconds.

"Midoriya...!? What are you doing here!?" Eraserhead said. He was aware of the fact that Izuku was meant to be in Yamanashi Prefecture, training with a hero that All Might had recommended, and not in the middle of this warzone.

"Argg...Eraserhead?" Izuku said after he got up and managed to recover somewhat from that forced landing.

"The last thing I expected was for you to be here." Eraserhead said.

"To be fair...it's not like I had a choice in the matter by the looks of it..." Izuku said after looking at the nomu, and then decided to talk with Eraserhead about why he was somehow there...

A couple of minutes before the nomus started to appear in Hosu. Izuku and Gran Torino were inside a train that was going through Hosu before they reached the next station to reach Gran Torino's apartment.

They had moved away from the city to test how effective Izuku's Echolocation was in a more natural environment, and after a day in which Izuku turned said training exercise into a rescue operation as his Echolocation and Mental Map allowed him to pick up the location of a couple of turist that were stranded on the forest in those mountains after a car incident that left them injured and lost in the middle of the forest inside the mountains.

The whole ordeal took a lot of time, but in the end, Izuku was happy to see that despite all that was done to him, he could still use those things in a way that could help others, despite what he believed in the beginning about how much of a monster he was.

He was chilling on that train, with Gran Torino talking about how he had made a lot of progress after that sparring match with Mirio, as he believed that Izuku's problem was not that he wasn't capable, but that he lacked the proper mindset to improve, and with the way that he chose to tackle that sparring match and how he refused to back down despite not being able to touch Mirio at all had made Izuku's mind to adopt a mindset that had made him to gain some more confidence in himself.

But then, Echolocation allowed Izuku to pick up the sounds of something that appeared to be an humanoid figure that was reaching their train at an impressive speed that made Izuku miscalculate said individual's appearance for a couple of seconds, who caught Izuku by surprise and ended with Izuku being shoved off the train and dragged around the air space of Hosu as that nomu hugged Izuku with enough strength to make the action of freeing himself far more difficult than it needed to be.

Izuku struggled and managed to free his arms from the creature's embrace, but he was picking up information thanks to Echolocation and Mental Map that prevented Izuku from quickly freeing himself as he could potentially land on a hero by mistake, and that was the last thing he wanted.

Izuku had no choice but to try his best to redirect the nomu as he was still in the air to find a safe place to land, and that was done by Izuku grabbing the nomu's head with enough force to harm the creature and use it as an impromptu joystick with inverted controls to try to steer the nomu's direction to where Izuku wanted to be.

The nomu resisted and did his best to try to stop Izuku by trying to slam him into multiple rooftops to stop him, but Izuku was far more sturdy than he appeared, and having a self-regeneration quirk allowed Izuku to quickly heal from whatever damage that Izuku ended up suffering in the process.

Izuku was sure that he ended up crashing with a poor schmuck that was on one of those rooftops that was contemplating the chaos that was going on in the city for some reason, but he had no time to check that out as the nomu still flew away with him trapped by that hug of theirs.

Unfortunately, Endeavor saw that nomu flying in the air as it was clashing with a lot of those rooftops and decided to knock it out of the sky with a fire blast. Said attack reached Izuku as well, but thanks to Combat Development absorbing the ice of Todoroki's quirk and developing Izuku's body to counter the intensity of either the ice or fire that he could create, the most that Izuku felt from that fire blast was that he was starting to get sweatier because his body was starting to heat up a little.

Izuku then saw how the nomu started to descend from the sky and was about to land in an alleyway nearby. He barely had time to react and managed to listen to how someone was giving a long speech about true heroes and fake ones as the nomu was about to reach the ground.

"OH FUCK...!" And that was the only thing that Izuku had time to say as he collided with the ground.

"And that is how I ended up here..." Izuku said, finishing his tale to not only Eraserhead, but to Gran Torino as well, who had managed to catch up with him a couple of seconds later after Eraserhead started to ask questions about why he was there.

Gran Torino, in a way, confirmed the fact that both Izuku and he were on the train of Hosu with no intention to join that manhunt for Stain, as they weren't informed about that and were returning home after a training session outside Yamanashi Prefecture.

"..." Eraserhead, and a curious Iida alongside the hero Native, who had been victims of Stain's quirk, had listened to that tale and saw how the infamous hero killer had been stopped by accident by someone who wasn't even trying to capture him and was dragged into the situation by mere accident.

"So...what are we going to do with this guy now? " Izuku asked Gran Torino, who was making a mental note to himself to have some words with Endeavor about how his lack of restraint when he attacked that nomu almost killed Izuku if it wasn't for the fact that he was resistant enough to his flames to walk off from that attack with little damage done to him, but he had to push those thougs aside as Izuku's question about what they were going to do with Stain put them all in a little of a bind there.

It was clear that they needed to restrain him so the police could take him straight into Tartarus for his crimes, but what they could say about the way that Stain was taking down without making Stain into a martyr that would energize his most deranged devotees into continuing his work once he was out of the streets?

As the heroes thought about that, Izuku had an idea that he decided to share with them after he started to fully think about the situation and the small details that Izuku was willing to ignore about heroism in general.

"Let's say that one of those creatures that appeared in the city came out of nowhere and crashed into him, incapacitating him, before a hero found him passed out in an alleway of Hosu during the attack of those creatures... in this way, we are not only telling the truth, but also would damage Stain's public image, because for someone that presents himself as a hero killer with a mision to purge corrupt heroes with all means necesary and having a serious and menancing air about him, a shameful way to go out of the public life after all the damage that he had caused whould cause a lot of damage to his message and the credibility of his cause..." Izuku started to explain. Gran Torino and Eraserhead were somewhat surprised by the fact that Izuku was showing that he was quite shrewd-minded and how devious his idea was in a way that benefited the whole hero community while giving the middle finger to Endeavor and his desire to gain more reputation by capturing Stain by spining a tale about how Eraserhead, who was trying to reach a student of the hero course that was in Hosu for motives that only pertain to U.A., managed to reach the hero killer when he was about to kill a hero...only for a nomu to clash into him and incapacitate him.

Said tale in a way omitted certain details, but it was a truthful statement of what had happened to Stain, and as Izuku said, omitting some parts of the truth of a situation is not lying, nor telling the whole truth, is just a half truth that a lot of people would eat up in this heroic obssesed society.

One way or another, Stain was out of the picture for good, Tenya Iida had been saved from his own stupid decisions before they cost him his life...for better or worse if Eraserhead had anything to say about that, and Izuku managed to metaphorically spit on Endeavor's face when both Native and Eraserhead dragged and unconscious and tied up Stain out of that alleway and gave the statement that Izuku came out with to make sure that the glory of capturing the hero killer was out of his hands for good.

The only thing that was still bugging Izuku's mind was if he actually clashed with someone on one of those rooftops or not, as he believed it happened a couple of minutes ago, but he was to tired to think about the whole ordeal and wanted to return to Gran Torino to pack his things and return home after this internship week.

He hoped that the next thing he was involved with was something less exciting than this...

Chapter Text

"It's good to talk with you again, Midoriya."  Nezu said. He called Izuku before the classes started in order to talk about what happened during the internship week and to see if he had made some progress from his point of view.

"Yeah...this whole week and the incident on Hosu had been an adventure and a half..." Izuku admitted. He was feeling a strange itch in his back, more precisely in the area where his shoulder blades were located, after he woke up this morning, and while he was trying his best not to let that bother him, he was starting to consider asking Nezu to let him go to the infirmary in case that yesterday flying lesson in Hosu had caused him some kind of damage that he was unable to fully heal on his own.

"Yeah...Eraserhead talked to me about how his attempt to reach Iida during the Hosu incident ended with him reaching his location seconds before Stain tried to kill him...only for you to come out of nowhere while a nomu was restraining you, and how you landed on top of him." Nezu said.

"I was in a train with Gran Torino, minding my own business, when I managed to pick up the sound of something flying at the train at a speed that made it somewhat difficult for me to properly calculate his position, and then the nomu tackled me out of the train and i was flying arround hosu while trying to free myself from that creature's graps, only for Endeavor to shot it out of the sky with his flames. It was a good thing that I recently became fire resistant to the point that Endeavor's flames only made me feel a little hot under the collar, because if it wasn't for that, then I would be badly burned or dead..." Izuku said. Nezu had been informed by Eraserhead about what happened and felt quite aprehensive at the number 2 hero for his callous disregard when he attacked that nomu, and despite the fact that Izuku turned out fine, Endeavor should had tried to pay attention to the creature to make sure that it was safe to attack it before blasting it out of the skies with his flames.

"Well...I made sure that Endeavor lost the chance to claim the massive W that would be the capture of Stain on his heroic list of deeds by telling Eraserhead a truthful tale about how he managed to capture Stain so that W would go to U.A. by default in a way, so I think that we are even. Okay, maybe he also started a smear campaign against me because he believes that his precious little darling failed to make something out of himself during the sports festival because of me, but is the whole blasting the nomu that was holding me out of the sky with a massive fire blast what made me feel upset with Endeavor." Izuku said.

Nezu almost chuckled a little at that statement, but then he decided to get serious and then apologice to Izuku for getting him in danger in a way even though he managed to convince him to take that intership offer with Gran Torino under the pretext that he was going only to train with a retired hero and not to do any kind of real hero job.

"You don't have to. I mean, what happened in Hosu is just a stroke of bad luck and not something that you really had a hand in. Whatever I like it or not, the moment that I decided to enter the hero course, regardless of the motives that made me accept your offer, should have been the moment that I would have had to accept that things like this could happen, so I can't blame you for that. If I wanted an apology from you, it would be from the whole incident with Eraserhead during the first day of the new school year because you had a hand in that incident despite your good intentions, but you quickly stepped up to fix that mistake and had done a lot for me during the past years, so i can't ask you to do that..." Izuku said. Nezu was moved in a way from Izuku's statement, as he considered that his efforts to help someone who had been in a similar position to his were helping him to feel somewhat better about his onw past, but there was still some other topics to talk about before the classes started, so he pushed those feelings aside and tried to have a more productive talk with Izuku from now on.

Meanwhile, in a hospital in Jaku. A pale white-haired man was lying unconscious on an operating table, said individual was Tomura Shigaraki, and he was there receiving an emergency procedure to save his life after his decision to sneak a peek at how the nomus were causing some damage on Hosu had backfired on him in the worst way possible when one flying nomu, who was the one that had captured Izuku, brutally slammed into him and had completely crushed the lower half of his body before he almost plumeted to his death if Shirogiri intervention managed to create a portal made of white mist that warped the falling Tomura back into the bar in Kamino.

The screams of pain and agony that Tomura was emitting inside the bar reached the microphones that were installed on the bar so AFO could spy on his apprentice, and that forced him to intervene personally and warp Tomura to Garaki's lab in Jaku to ask the doctor to try to fix Tomura before he was irreparably damaged to a point that he would become too useless for him to fulfill his true task.

AFO cared little for Tomura aside from the fact that his whole existence could be weaponized against All Might, as Tomura Shigaraki was the grandson of All Might's beloved mentor, and even that didn't save Tomura from being sent to the chopping block if he ended up in an useless state that prevented him from fulfilling his one true purpose to become his next body.

The injuries that AFO had sustained during his fight with All Might had rendered his body too weak to make proper use of AFO, but even if he had the means to heal himself fully, there was one issue that made AFO seek to change his body into another one that would be able to fully tap into the power that AFO had.

Said issue? The fact that AFO's own body wasn't able to carry as many quirks as he wanted, as his body had a limit on how many quirks he could carry, bothered the long-lived supervillain. He was born at the "dawn of the quirks" era, being one of the first individuals in the world who belonged to the first generation of individuals that started to show quirks, and it aperaed to him that the subsequetns genration of indivuals with quirks had not only stronger quirks, but also their bodies had evolved in a way as they carried the genes of people that had already had quirks their entire life.

AFO, in a way, indulged Garaki's research on the means to counter the quirk singularity theories that he believed in, as his search to find ways to allow future generations to withstand the eventual appearance of quirks that were far more powerful than their bodies could handle benefited AFO's goals.

But after the doctor made a breakthrough after he harvested the body parts of that not-so-quirkless kid that he sent Kurogiri to kidnap so he could turn him into a nomu that would be an All Might killer, as said kid in fact had a strange, yet marvelous quirk that sadly was irreparably damaged when they not only had forced multiple artificial quirks on him, but also took his arms, legs and body.

As AFO was now thinking about that boy, he started to remember that conversation that he had with Garaki after they had discovered too late that they had in a way permanently damaged the golden goose that said boy's quirk had as their curiosity about how a supposed quirkless kid managed to endure a procedure that almost had killed Gigantomachia if it wasn't for the endurance quirks that AFO gave him, had made them not think about the logical possibility that said quirkless kid had in fact a quirk at all...

"So that is what makes this boy so capable of fully adapting all those quirks into his body without ending up brain dead as the other test subjects?"

"Yes, AFO. He wasn't quirkless at all, but he had a quirk whose requirements to be activated consisted of having someone trying to implant a quirk on him for said quirk to appear."

"To have the power to fully adapt and assimilate any kind of quirk that either I transferred to him or you had implanted to him is the kind of quirk that would solve a lot of the problems that I have with how AFO had a limit on how many quirks I can carry."

"Indeed, it is, AFO. But sadly, his quirk factor had been... irreparably damaged in a way, as it appears that his quirk was still in early development stages and our decision to see how much quirks he could take before his mind could break had some unforeseen consequences."

"I see...but could we do something about it with the quirk factors that you had harvested from his arms, legs, and eyes? Like repairing them in order to create an artificial quirk that would work similarly to the one he was supposed to have for me to use? "

"I'm afraid not, that damaged quirk factor it's too unstable at the moment, and I'm afraid that attempting to create something like this before finding a way to stabilize those damaged quirk factors could end up poorly for you..."

The memories about said conversation, and how Garaki decided to try to replicate those damaged quirk factors in order to find a way to repair them before fixing the real quirk factors that they harvested from that boy kept AFO entertained as Garaki was still busy fixing Tomura's damaged body.

To AFO, people weren't things like names, individuals, or identities, but the quirks that they possessed, so when Kurogiri had kidnapped that boy, AFO never even bothered to consider said boy as anything else but a guinea pig that he was meant to be used to further their experiments and agenda. He was so uncaring about who said boy was or where he lived, that when said boy's true value to his goals was made apparent, and then said boy managed to escape from Jaku's underground lab, AFO cursed his lack of foresight as now he hadn't a way to quickly capture him back so he could not lose him as an asset, as he was so uncaring about who he was and his origins that he didn't bothered to see if he had living relatives or where he lived before being kidnaped that he was unable to prepare something in the case that he escaped his clutches.

AFO decided, in a bit of ego and pride, to let the sleeping dog lie after said boy escaped and not only refused to search for him to try to kidnap him again, but he also refused to even check who he was as AFO in the end considered that he had lost all value to his eyes the moment that Garaki had harvested a lot of his quirk factor and was going to try to repair them to create an artificial quirk for him to use based on said adaptability that said boy showed during those years of experiments and constant quirk implantation and transfering.

After all, what would be the chances for that broken and disfigured boy to get in his way and make him regret his decision to not be diligent enough to not let him get away with his escape from Garaki's underground lab in Jaku?

"...Ummm" Izuku mumbled to himself as he had gotten out from an X-ray room that was in U.A. infirmary to check up if that strange itch on his shoulder blades was something caused by an injury badly healed from the incident in Hosu or if that was something to do with the experimetns that were done to him as a child all those years ago.

Izuku saw how Recovery Girl was talking through the phone to Nezu as she looked somewhat concerned, and he was starting to think that something was going on with his body now, but then, he started to feel some pain in his shoulder blades. It was almost like something was growing out of them.

"Izuku!" Recovery Girl said as she saw how Izuku was now kneeling on the ground, sweating as his face showed that he was in pain, and she saw how something was rapidly growing on his shoulder blades and ripping its way out of all the flesh and muscle in order to get out.

Nezu, who was talking to Recovery Girl on the phone, as she wanted to talk with him about how something was growing on Izuku's shoulder blades, quickly came to the infirmary, with Eraserhead on tow, and then they saw how a pair of gigantic black wings with some red details ended up sprouting from Izuku's shoulder blades, destroying the hospital

gown that Izuku was wearing at the moment and leaving him barely naked aside from his underwear.

"Ahhhh....Ahhh...." Izuku was now trying to calm down after that experience that had shocked the heroes in the room, as part of his back had exploded as those wings made their way out of his shoulder blades.

The situation at the moment was quite tense, and no one knew what to do after seeing Izuku grow wings out of nowhere, but maybe this was one of those quirks that Izuku didn't know that he had that had decided to awaken right now...

Chapter Text

"..." Izuku's mind was going at full speed as the conversation between Nezu and those heroes in the infirmary started to fade away as if it were just white noise.

His emotions were somewhat suppressed, as something inside his mind was subtly dulling his ability to feel emotions. He was suddenly overwhelmed with information about what was happening with those black wings that had emerged from his back, alongside information about how to deal with them.

"So this is your doing..." Izuku was able to think while he was still in a state of emotional suppression, as now he was somewhat aware of something inside his mind that was playing the role of a gatekeeper to not only keep him unable to fully access to all the quirks that he had implanted on him, but also to all the trauma that he endured.

That something acknowledged Izuku's thoughts, but aside from projecting some words in his mind that left its stance clear to Izuku, said something just fulfilled its self-imposed duty before fading into the background of Izuku's mind, always ready to intervene if necessary, but out of sight and unwilling to communicate with Izuku at all unless it believed that it was strictly necessary.

"Are you all right, Midoriya?" Recovery girl asked. Izuku was still on the ground, his back fully healed and his mind now working at full capacity, but the amount of time that he had spent motionless on the ground as everyone else was panicking in a way made Recovery Girl worry.

"Yeah...I know now more or less what is going on with those things." Izuku said. He started to get up, trying to adapt to those new wings of his as he had to come to terms with the fact that those things were a part of him in one way or another.

"Are you sure?" Nezu asked. Izuku nooded and then decided to say what he was now allowed to know, thanks to said mental quirk reducing the amount of info that it kept under wraps from him.

"Yeah...those wings are part of an artificial hybrid quirk that would have allowed me to grow extra body parts in order to enhance my mobility so I could be unimpeded by the terrain by growing wings to fly away if needed, or to develop things like gills for example in case that I needed to move underwater." Izuku said. The mention of this being a hybrid quirk came because, as far as Izuku knew, Terrain Master was a transformation quirk that appeared to be like a mutant quirk as it changed his body structure like mutant quirks did, but thanks to all the modifications done to it, said quirk worked like an on-and-off switch that made Izuku to choose for how long he wanted to have those extra body parts active or not.

As he shared that information with Nezu and those heroes, those black wings started to retract inside Izuku's body at a quick pace, and some black patches of skin on his shoulder blades that had grown after Izuku's back almost burst when those wings appeared the first time were remained as the proof that those wings were still inside Izuku's body, now compacted inside his onw body in a way that didn't impeded his normal life at all.

"It appears that Combat Development can make my body experience a stronger evolution in case that I make some kind of contact with the quirk factors of those nomus..." Izuku explained. He told them about how both his self-healing capabilities massively improved after he managed to impale the stomach of nomu in the USJ with his bare hands, to the point that he quickly healed off the damage that Kurogiri's self-destruction caused, and how those massive wings growing in his back happened in a way because he managed to get in contact with the quirk factor of the winged nomu in hosu seconds before he landed on top of Stain, and that made Terrain Master to quickly update the wings that said quirk was meant to give him with those that were similar to the ones that the winged nomu had.

As much as Izuku had discovered something about what was going on with him, thanks to said mental quirk letting him access said knowledge, he had barely advanced in a way in that regard. But maybe it was for the best, as the words that said mental quirk let on his mind before refusing to talk to him were quite concerning...

"You are not ready yet..."

It took some time before Izuku was left out of the infirmary, with Izuku showing that he pretty much had Terrain Master under control by quickly sprouting his wings and then pulling them back inside his body before he was allowed to leave, but he was then allowed to return to his classroom during the second period.

Izuku may be able to avoid giving too many explanations to Present Mic about why he came so late to class and why he wasn't in the classroom already when he entered because Nezu got in contact with the teachers that were meant to give classes to the students of class 1-B for the day a heads up about Izuku being told to stay in the infirmary until Nezu saw it fit for him to return to class, but the same didn't apply to Izuku's classmates for oblious reasons.

The faculty of U.A. were quite aware of Izuku's past and history as Nezu decided to come clean with them all in order to avoid any potential issues after the LOV made an act of presence during the USJ, and the Nomu that was named the All Might Killer came to the scene, but his classmates were left on the dark as Izuku refusal to share his past with them alongside Vlad King's decision to respect Izuku's wishes in that regard made Izuku's classmates to be left in the dark about what was trully going on with Izuku.

That combined with the events of the sports festival, in which Shinso Hitoshi used some nasty insults to refer to Izuku as a lab rat and a guinea pig, alongside the miraculous recovery that Izuku made after the USJ incident, in which he ended up almost burned alive, made the whole situation in class 1-B when dealing with Izuku quite the frustrating endeavor for those who wanted to befriend Izuku, as the previous week before the intership week happened made the class have a more cold atmosphere as Izuku actively refused to talk about what Shinso was talking about when he used those nasty words and almost regressed to how he behaved before the USJ happened.

Vlad King hoped that this small one-week break in the class could help the situation return to how it was before the sports festival, as Izuku started to become more friendly with his classmates, but the insults that Shinso used during that fight during the sports festival made Izuku react, so he could fall under the effects of Shinso's quirk made his classmates think that those insults were related to a part of Izuku's past that he wasn't that eager to deal with. But the only thing he could do at the moment was to wait and see how things developed and to try his best to make Izuku able to feel comfortable in his classroom until he fully opened himself to others.

"...Delicious." Izuku said as he was eating an extra-big bowl of white rice during lunch hour. He was sitting alongside the classmates with whom he felt more connected as they talked about how they had spent their intership week.

Some had a more productive intership, like Kinoko and Ibara, whose heroes that they chose to intern with were quite helpful and taught them a lot, Awase's intership was quite average for what he said, and poor Pony had to deal with her shaky grasp of the japanese language as the hero she interned with used a more advanced vocabulary that she could manage at this point and had to figure out things on her own until one of the sidekicks of said hero undestood her issues and offered to act as a translator for her so she could perfomr better during the intership week.

"And how did your internship go, Midoriya...?" Pony said. There was a clear tension in the group as all of them had thought about how the words guinea pig and lab rat could affect Izuku that much to fall prey to a quirk that he knew how it worked and wiuthout izuku clearing the air on that issue and refusing to talk about it, then they made their conclusions that weren't making them think that izuku's childhood had been a normal experience at all.

"Well...I spent the whole week in a city located in Yamanashi Prefecture, training with a retired hero that helped me to get a better understanding of my quirk..." Izuku said. He was quite aware that he had to mind his words a little, as there were some things that he couldn't reveal at all because they pertained to his situation and the truth that he was keeping away from them about who he was. Sure, there was also the whole Stain ordeal in Hosu and the fact that he could reveal certain details about those events, which while it did not contradict the public statement made in the past day about how Stain was captured, it revealed the fact that he was involved with what happened there and he didn't wanted to his name to be involved in that incident at all.

"I see..." Ibara said, as she and the others listened to how Izuku had a more "mundane" internship than the ones that they had. If only they knew the truth...

"The most exciting thing was that I ended up sparring with a sidekick of a hero that was quite strong..." Izuku said. He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings that much as he recounted his tale about his sparring match with Mirio Togata, someone who was a sidekick of a hero far as he knew. But as he continued to talk about how he spent two hours being knocked around by that guy before he managed to catch one of his punches with his hand. A new person joined the table in witch Izuku and the others were sitting at the moment.

"You are quite humble, Midoriya. But let's be real, you did way better than expected. After all, I'm a third-year student of the hero course while you are just a first-year student." That was the voice of Mirio Togata, whose presence was now made known to the people who were sitting at that table and the few who were in the adjacent tables.

"Whoa...did you see who is sitting with those first years!?"

"Yeah...it's Mirio Togata!"

"No way...is that same Togata who is part of U.A.'s big three!?"

Izuku heard those words and other comments about the identity of the supposed sidekick that he sparred with in Gran Torino's apartment. To be fair with Gran Torino, Izuku simply heard the words "a sidekick came to spar with you" and Izuku focused too much on that part while ignoring whether Gran Torino revealed more info about that guy or not, so as far as Izuku knew, Gran Torino may had told him a lot about Mirio Togata but he focused to much in the idea of fighting with the guy.

"You are part of U.A.? I believed that you were a hero already when we met..." Izuku said, not sure why Mirio decided to talk with him while in U.A., but Izuku was going to be polite with the guy anyway, as he hadn't done anything wrong to him.

"You flatter me...but I'm still a student of the hero course of U.A., one that is in the third year of the hero course and almost ready to graduate, but still a hero student." Mirio said. He was talking with Izuku for two reasons in a way. The first one was because he was quite curious about him after that sparring match that they had in Gran Torino's apartment, and wanted to know more about the kid that refused to stand down during a sparring match with him to the point that Mirio was almost defeated because he was starting to seriously tire out.

The second one was a reason that made him more reluctant to fulfill, as his mentor told him to keep a watch on him because Sir Nighteye considered him still a wild card that could potentially jeopardize them all and wanted for him to learn more about Izuku in case that he could learn a way to take them out as fast as posible in case that he was a sleeper agent for AFO.

Mirio had been made aware of Izuku's past because Sir Nighteye, who was made aware of Izuku's situation without having any real right to know about it because he forced himself into a meeting that All Might was having with Gran Torino, decided to share that information with him despite the fact that those who were in U.A. who were aware of Izuku's situation decided to keep it quiet for Izuku's sake. But as much as he understood Sir Nighteye's concerns, Mirio wanted to not see Izuku in that negative light and act like he was a warden or something like that, and wanted to befriend him for real, to the point that he deliberately told both his best friends to give him some space while he interacted with Izuku and to not interact with him unless he wanted to do that, because for as much as he trusted Tamaki and Nejire and knew that they were smart enough to quickly figure out things, the last thing that he needed was for Izuku to feel somewhat weired out with Tamaki's behavior or to be completedly offended with Nejire's questioning him about his apereance.

Mirio knew that Nejire's innate curiosity and the fact that she could get quite excited and ask multiple questions about his appearance and what quirk he had could potentially set Izuku off in the wrong way and would make any kind of attempt to befriend Izuku more difficult if Izuku had genuine grievances with Nejire for asking some sensitive questions that could offend Izuku. Nejire had gotten somewhat better with that after a couple of years in the hero course and a couple of nasty accidents in which her nature to ask multiple questions to people with mutant quirks had completely angered some villains that were about to surrender, but since Mirio decided to keep quiet about what he knew about Izuku to at least try to respect the same secrecy that the faculty had with Izuku's situation, then Mirio couldn't risk himself in that way.

So he decided to take the most logical course of action at the moment and tried to establish some kind of friendship with Izuku in the hopes of genuinely helping him with his issues while hoping that his mentor's fears were unfounded. He just hoped that this was the right call...

Chapter Text

After that chance meeting with Mirio in the cafeteria, which ended with Mirio singing praises about how resilient Izuku was during a sparring match with him, Izuku noticed that many people from other courses, who were in the upper years, started to show some interest in him for no apparent reason.

Izuku may care little about those things, but considering that one of the most popular and most liked students of the hero course of U.A. vouched for him with his honest opinion about how Izuku managed to spar with him during two hours non stop and almost managed to win by outlasting him, the it was difficult for Izuku to avoid that growing interest that those older students showed to him.

He kept his head down as he disliked that attention, but made the point to be polite with those people. That in a way, became part of his routine for a while, and if Izuku had to make a choice between dealing with things like the USJ and the Hosu incident or this, then Izuku preferred dealing with people who didn't want to kill him and were only talking to him because they were curious about how he managed to make that much of an impression on Mirio.

That attention died out a little a month later, just in time for the next mess that came straight to U.A. thanks to one particular student from another hero academia, thanks to a visitation program that allowed students from the hero courses of other hero schools in Japan to take part in a joint training exercise with both first years of the hero course.

The hero academia from which this student came was Isamu Academy High School. This high school was not only located in Mustafu, but was also near U.A., by the looks of it.

"..." Izuku was looking at the four students who were in front of them, who had come from another hero school in order to join both hero classes in one joint training exercise for reasons that were above what Izuku needed to know.

He tried not to be that judgmental of others without at least knowing enough about an individual to make a more accurate judgment of a person's character, but there was something telling Izuku that Romero Fujimi, one of those students from Isamu, was bad news.

Maybe it was just him being paranoid, maybe it was that Romero had an air about him that made Izuku think that Romero had too much of an ego to be tolerable...or maybe it was because Izuku saw how Romero was insulting them all and acting like he was better that them and that it was a personal insult to him to have to be in their presence, but Izuku knew that he wasn't going to have a good opinion of that guy by the looks of it.

Nezu called the students to behave after Romero's insults and mean words riled up both class 1-A and 1-B to the point that it looked like they were about to throw hands at Romero.

"We are going to have a joint exercise on Ground Beta..." Nezu started to explain as he watched how Romero was looking quite smugly at the fact that Nezu had to call out his students to behave after he had riled them up with his petty taunts and insults. Nezu knew that Romero was a disruptive element whose actions had ruined this joint exercise and the motives behind this visitation program, as it was meant to create some bonds with students of the hero course of U.A. with other students of other hero schools to help them in the future, but it was late now to do anything about it and just hoped to at least see if the situation could be salvaged in a way.

So with that idea in mind, Nezu explained that the exercise they were going to do today for this joint training exercise was something that was called a team survival course. They were going to go in smaller teams that could be from 3 to 5 students and would walk inside the fake city on Ground Beta to patrol it, and they were going to compete to see who was the last team standing, as they were going to try to capture the other teams to try to be team that won the excersice. The idea wasn't just to be the team that captured the most teams and restrained them, but to be the one that managed to be the last team standing.

After those explanations were given to all the hero students in the meeting room, in which all of them were reunited, Nezu saw how Izuku was actually talking with the students of class 1-A out of his own volition for some reason.

Nezu was unable to hear what Izuku was trying to talk about with those kids, and aside from the fact that he saw how almost all the students of class 1-A, aside from Todoroki, who hated Izuku for what he did to him in the Sports Festival from his point of view, reacted positively to what Izuku had told them, despite the fact that it appeared that Izuku wasn't teaming up with them by the looks of it, and Nezu hoped that this was a good sign...

Romero Fujimi and his classmates from Isamu were walking through the streets of the fake city, relying on the quirk of Kashiko Sekigai, who allowed her to create a holographic page that allowed her to track and locate people in a large area near her, in order to try to catch the other teams by surprise so they could ambush them.

But it was easier said than done, because for some reason, all the teams that Kashiko was tracking with their quirk somehow managed to move in a way that made their attempts to ambush them useless.

That frustrated Romero as he wanted to catch some of those students by surprise to insult them some more before using his quirk on them to humiliate them even further, but as time passed and their attempts to catch any team by surprise failed, Romero's frustration reached a boiling point and started to bad mouth his own teammates.

"You are being quite fucking useless right now, class president." Romero said.

"..." Kashiko Sekigai knew better than to try to talk sense with Romero, as Romero was someone who was barely tolerated in their class, with only Dadan being the closest thing to a friend that Romero had in class, and tried to focus on her holographic chart that she created with her quirk to try to find something that could explain the fact that all those teams of students of U.A. somehow managed to avoid their attemps to ambush them.

"Wait...there is one student who is alone." She said as she found that there was one student near their position who was alone for some reason, and decided to see if by taking Romero and the others to that student, so Romero could use his quirk on him, so he could stop bothering her.

"Good..." Romero said as  Kashiko led the others to the position of an unsuspecting Shoto Todoroki, who had broken away from his group for some reason and was trying his best to hunt the other teams on his own.

Shoto Todoroki wasn't prepared at all when a couple of missiles came from an alleyway behind him, reached his position, and he was forced to turn his body in the direction from which those missiles came.

"Mongoose! Use your quirk now!" Todoroki heard that voice coming from that alleyway, and then he saw how a pair of glowing eyes were looking at him.

"...!" Todoroki was unable to move a muscle as those glowing eyes released a blinding flash, and then he fell to the ground like he was a puppet whose strings had been cut.

"Well...catching one of those bastards is better than nothing..." Romero said as he was about to use his own quirk to release a gas that would turn the son of the number two hero of Japan into a zombie for a small amount of time.

"Uuuhhhh..." Romero saw how Todoroki's skin was taking a bluish-gray tone, and how his eyes started to sink a little as he started to moan a little. That caused him to smile a little as he managed to knock down from their pedestal to one of those kids in the hero course of U.A. from his perspective, and considering that he did all of that to that same kid that a lot of people belived that it had the best chance to win the sports festival before he falied to complete the first event, then Romero was even more happier at the sight of his quirk taking effect on one of his enemies.

He waited until he was sure that Todoroki was fully turned into a zombie before he decided to address his classmates, but then he saw that he had accidentally turned them into zombies as well when he turned his back on Todoroki.

"You people are pathetic...you should know better at this point." Those were the only things that Romero said to his classmates after the release of his quirk gas had turned them into zombies as well. Romero was uncaring about the people that he could affect with his quirk when he used it, and considering that he had shown in the hero course in Isamu how reckless he was with how he used his quirk multiple times in the past, then he felt no pity for his classmates that had fallen victim to the pink gas that he created that could turn people into zombies. For him, if you weren't protected when he used his quirk, then you were asking for it.

"So not only are you a shit talker, but also someone who cares little about the collateral damage that your quirk could cause... And you say that you are a hero student when you are acting like a villain?" The voice of Izuku Midoriya reached Romero's ears, and then he turned his body in the direction from which that voice came to see if there was someone there, but he saw nothing at all.

"Show yourself, you fucking coward!" That was the only thing that Romero could say now. There were a lot of things that angered Romero, and to be called a villain was one of them. Romero did suffer some bullying because of the villainous connotations of his quirk, and hated when someone called him a villain, but the thing was that as much as he hated to be called a villain, Romero didn't make any effort at all to act in a way that would made people think otherwise as he considered that becoming  a hero would be enough to make people to stop calling him a villain.

"Fine. Look above you." Izuku said, and then he jumped from the rooftop of one of those buildings and landed on top of Romero, incapacitating him in the process while pushing the pink mist that Romero created away from that alleyway and away from him.

"The students of Isamu had been captured. Fujimi had used his quirk on Todoroki and his own allies." Izuku said. He had an earpiece in his right ear that he was using to communicate with the other students of U.A.

And why did Izuku have an earpiece that he was using to talk with the other teams when this was supposed to be a competition between teams? Simple, all the students of U.A., sans Todoroki, decided to agree to share information in case they saw Romero and their team to avoid them until one of the teams from U.A. had a chance to take them out, and while that could had been dificult considering that Romero had someone in his team with a quirk that could allow her to locate the other teams with some ease. Izuku's having access to Echolocation and Mental Map made him able to fully counter Kashiko's quirk by allowing him to keep tabs on them in the same way that she was keeping tabs on them. He used that earpiece to warn the teams when Romero and his team were close, so they could avoid them.

"Since Romero and his people are now out of the competition, our alliance for this exercise is over. Good luck to everyone, and may the best team win." Izuku said as he took his earpiece off and put it inside one pocket in his pants.

Izuku moved to pull the capture tape that was given to all the teams in order to signal that a team was captured, and then moved to tie up those people from Isamu and a zombified Todoroki before he decided to abandon that alleyway.

He was quite sure that what Izuku and the others did in this exercise was something that was against the rules of this team exercise, but considering how Romero managed to quickly antagonize both classes of the hero course on U.A. to the point that they decided to join forces to make their team lose no matter what, then it was clear to everyone aside from the teachers that none of them cared at all about how what they did was a probable violation of the rules for this excercise.

But Izuku knew Nezu well enough to know that he would be someone who would have quickly figured out what they wanted to do, and if no teacher had come to stop them from doing this, then it was almost like Nezu was giving them a green light to do this.

In the control room from Ground Beta, both homeroom teachers from the hero courses of the first year and Nezu saw on a big screen on that room how Izuku used that earpiece to say to the other teams that their aliance for this excersice to help each other to take Romero and his team out was over and that now they were going to compete for real.

Both homeroom teachers had their own opinions about what their students had done during this exercise, but in the end, Nezu decided to see the way that all of them behaved during this exercise and how they used said temporary alliance before making any kind of judgment.

"...Midoriya hadn't taken advantage of said alliance and his own quirks to score a cheap victory, and honored his word of giving support to the other teams so they could avoid being targeted by Fujimi and his team." Nezu stated. On one hand, he was happy to see that Izuku was willing to socialize with others if needed, but on the other hand, he knew that what Izuku did had compromised in a way the whole exercise, as kickstarting an alliance in order to screw one team was completely unfair for those students of that team.

"But considering how Fujimi's behavior and way to behave with them had managed to sour what was supposed to be an exercise that was meant to build some connection with students of other hero schools... then I think that we can make an exception for this time." Nezu said, making sure that both teachers knew what his final decision on this matter was.

"Make no mistake, I will talk with Izuku about this. But it is difficult to blame those kids for trying to do something like this against someone who had decided to actively antagonize them to stoke his own ego and sense of superiority over others." Those were the last words that Nezu made about this situation, which as far as Nezu was concerned, was already resolved.

There were other important matters for him to attend to, like figuring out what kind of final exam the students of the first year of the hero course would have this year...and that if he needed to prepare a different exam for Izuku alone, considering his unique situation and capabilities.

Chapter Text

"..." Izuku and those who were closer to him in class 1-B were now busy in the cafeteria, studying for the final exams for this semester, one week after the exercise with the students of the Isamu High School.

That exercise was something that the students of U.A. who took part in it quickly moved on, as they really didn't want to remember how Romero Fujimi managed to turn what was meant to be a fun experience that would allow both groups of students to create some connections for the future into a grudge match that managed to unite almost all the students of U.A. into prioritizing eliminating the students from Isamu from the exercise over playing fair and square.

Nezu decided to talk with Izuku in private about the fact that he had been the one who managed to kickstart that idea, convince almost everyone from U.A. to go along with it, and used his quirks to make sure that Romero's team was unable to reach the students from U.A. before Izuku went for the kill.

Izuku was quite surprised that Nezu gave him a scolding, but not for the reasons that one would expect. Izuku knew that he managed to earn Nezu's sympathy for his situation and that Nezu looked out for him, but he also knew that Nezu wasn't someone who would let someone try to take advantage of whatever sympathy that he had with you to get away with things that Nezu disliked.

The reprimand that Izuku got from Nezu was quite generic and dispassionate, and considering that Izuku knew that Nezu was someone who never minced words with people when he wanted to make them know how badly they had screwed up, then Izuku believed that as much as Izuku managed to convince everyone to join forces to deal with the people of Isamu, completely missing the point of what this exercise was about, and unfairly stacking the deck against Romero and his classmates, Nezu's reprimand was just him going trought the motions as the principal of U.A. and giving him that talk even if Nezu considered that Romero's behavior had been what allowed Izuku's ploy to exist on the first place.

"We know that we are going to spend a whole week doing exams...but the one that worries me is the one that would test our capabilities on the field as heroes." Izuku said.

"Did Togata tell you something about it?" Kinoko asked. She was reviewing her notes before she decided to ask that question.

"No...but now that you have told me that, then maybe I should ask him, for all I know, he may know something." Izuku admitted, somewhat ashamed of not thinking about asking Mirio about it, but considering that he was somewhat wary of him despite the fact that Mirio showed himself to be an upstanding guy with him since they met, it was understandable that Izuku wasn't defaulting to asking Mirio things about U.A., despite the fact that he was his upperclassman.

"Maybe...but for all we know, there could be a new exam this year that none of our upperclassmen knows about..." Pony said.

"...Hum." Izuku wanted to say something about what Pony said, but then he realized that it would be something that Nezu would do if he thought that was necessary.

"Who knows, but we need to focus first on studying for the written exams...and we need to find a way to convince Midoriya to give algebra a chance, over constantly relying on basic mathematical operations to deal  with anything that Ectoplasm throws at him during math class." Ibara said.

"Maths is all about numbers, not letters, and I refuse to back down on that one, no matter what." Izuku said. Maybe it was something stupid on his part, but Izuku refused to give up on the notion that maths was only about numbers and that letters had no place in maths.

"Okay, fair enough. But considering that you can actually follow and use complex math formulas when we are talking about how to accurately calculate the damage that a character on Persona 5 Royal can do by taking into account all the factors that can increase or decrease the damage caused...then your refusal to use algebra is almost puzzling." Awase said. He was the first one who figured out that, despite the fact that Izuku was adamantly refusing to use algebra no matter what, if you then showed him a complex formula to calculate the amount of damage done to an enemy based on multiple variables that were represented with letters, then Izuku was able to not only undestand it, but also use it with no issue despite his refusal to deal with algrebra.

"Is a character flaw of mine." Izuku said. His friends couldn't help but laugh at it and then continued with their improvised study session during lunch hour.

Izuku didn't know if this was what having friends was supposed to be, but he felt that moments like this were quite nice to experience, and a part of him wanted to experience more of those things...

"..." Katsuki Bakugo was now in a hospital bed, resting after enduring a long and complex procedure. He was taken to a hospital in Jaku after a kindly old man, who presented himself as one of the chairmen of Jaku General Hospital, came to his family and convinced his parents to take him to Jaku so they could try to heal the career-ending injuries that Bakugo had sustained in the USJ by subjecting Bakugo to multiple surgeries that would help him return to form.

One of the first things that Bakugo had restored thanks to those surgeries was his sight, and the only reason that stopped Bakugo from throwing a nasty temper tantrum after seeing his charred skin and that he was missing one arm in one mirror in the room was that he was heavily sedated almost all the time.

Bakugo's perception of time was quite messed up as being constantly on drugs made his grip on reality to be quite weak, he barely had any time for any sort of clarity or any other thought that wasn't focused on being back to full form so he could return to the hero course and to put all those extras in their place.

There was no thought at all about why his parents never came to visit him at all, or how they were doing right now, as Bakugo barely cared at all about anything that wasn't himself or his dream to become a hero.

He wasn't aware at all that maybe...maybe the people that were healing him had some ulterior motives for doing this to him, but what could you expect from someone whose ego was big enough to believe that he was destined to surpass All Might and to become the next number one hero despite the fact that he completedly disregard why All Might became the hero that was loved by almost everyone in this world.

But that was the truth of his situation. Katsuki Bakugo had been taken to Jaku General Hospital, but he wasn't in a room there...he had been taken to the underground lab that Garaki had built before the hospital was created as a cover for his lab, and now he was in the same place where Izuku had spent almost two years of his life from his childhood where he had been heavily experimented on and turned in who he was today.

He also wasn't aware that he had fallen into the hands of someone who had decided to turn him into an asset for his cause...a cause that went against everything that he wanted to be because people refused to discipline bakugo for his unheroic behavior and behaving like a villain since he was a kid as they considered that his quirk was flashy enought to be considered a heroic quirk, Bakugo always wanted to be a hero.

But that mattered little to AFO. AFO needed foot soldiers to beef up the LOV after their attempts to rally people who followed Stain to their cause failed as Stain captured and the tales of how he was captured not only deprived the LOV of said publicity, but also made sure that a lot of Stain fanboys would hate the LOV as it was one of their nomus that stopped Stain's crusade by accident.

AFO had to pull some of his contacts to manage to recruit some hardened criminals for the LOV, with one of them being convinced only because he was promised the chance to get revenge on his family, and AFO decided that, whatever Bakugo liked or not, he was going to be part of the LOV as a henchman for Shigaraki.

Bakugo's parents had been taken care of by AFO using a bunch of mental quirks to mess with their minds and memories, so they believed that Bakugo had died, and they wouldn't bother them while they turned Bakugo into a villain.

The next part of the process was to implant in him a more effective version of the mental quirk that was implanted on Izuku before he "died" with the intention of keeping Bakugo in a state that would allow AFO to easily manipulate him from a distance while making sure that Bakugo had enough sense of self to further their agenda without any input from his part. AFO wasn't still sure why this quirk caused such a visceral reaction in Izuku, but he hoped that with the new improvements that the doctor made to that quirk after years of studying would allow AFO to turn Bakugo into a useful tool that would further his goals.

Shigaraki was still recovering from the surgeries that he had to endure after that flying nomu impacted him and almost shattered his spine and heavily damaged some of his organs, and AFO was starting to get somewhat impatient at the fact that his idea to create the LOV in order to kickstart Shigaraki's development wasn't giving the results that he wanted.

It was time to get himself involved so the LOV would get the infamy that he wanted for them to have.

The day of the last exam of the final exams came, and after a lot of mystery and secrecy about what was what, to the point that not even Mirio was able to tell Izuku about what Nezu could have had in mind for that exam, they were going to do on the last day of that week full of exams. Nezu revealed that their final exam would be a fight of sorts against a teacher.

The rules were quite simple: two students would fight against a teacher, who would hold back enough to give the students a fighting chance to pass, and they had to either capture the teacher to win or reach the exit of the area where they were located in order to pass.

That exam was for everyone, Izuku included, but his exam had an interesting twist. He would face All Might himself, but his partner for that exam was Mirio Togata.

"Sorry, Midoriya. But Nezu told me not to tell you about it, no matter what..." Mirio said. He had been approached by Nezu a couple of weeks before the exam to talk about why Sir Nighteye insisted on having him spar with Izuku during the intership week, and Mirio ended up revealing not only the reasons that pushed Sir Nighteye to arrange that meeting, but also what Sir Nighteye ordered Mirio to do.

Nezu was quite disappointed in a way about the way that Sir Nighteye chose to do things, and even if his concerns were understandable in a way, Nezu considered that having Mirio become friendly with Izuku just to keep tabs on him to find a way to take him down in case Izuku was an unwilling sleeping agent was quite reprehensible, as he considered that Izuku needed to make genuine bonds with people to help him to heal, the only saving grace for Mirio was the fact that he came fully clean with Nezu about what Sir Nighteye had in mind, what he did to inform Mirio about Izuku's situation despite said information being something that Nezu wanted to keep tabs on to prevent it to be leaked, and how Mirio prefered to genuily become a friend on Izuku over doing it out of duty.

But that didn't spare Mirio from any kind of punishment, and the fact that he would have had to face All Might with Izuku's help in order to help him pass this exam was not only a punishment of sorts for Mirio but also a test for Nezu to see if what Mirio said to help Izuku was real or not.

"I see...I'm not surprised about that." Izuku said. He was thinking in a way that maybe the reason that he was the one who drew the short stick in that lottery was that the teacher he would have to face in this exam was because All Might was the only teacher in U.A. that could actually be able to take whatever he could do in case that the situation got out of control.

Izuku didn't get along with All Might that much, as he considered All Might a fraud because Izuku asked himself where the hero was when Izuku was in need of a hero during those two years that he had been experimented upon after he was kidnapped. To see that the symbol of peace and the hero that a lot of people looked up to wasn't there when he needed him the most was something that made him hate heroes for not living up to the infallible image that society presented the heroes.

The only thing that in a way keep Izuku from taking a dark turn aside from that mental quirk keeping a lot of his trauma surpresed alongside some of his most darkest memories was that he had gone trough a lot of therapy after he was rescued and his bond with Nezu, the only hero that did something for him, helped him to make peace with those negative feelings that he felt for heroes and the hero society in general. He still hated heroes, but he wasn't that ardent in his hatred as he was when he was a kid, and was willing to admit that some people could be real heroes as long as they didn't do anything to him.

So this fight with All Might was going to be interesting to say the least...

Chapter Text

"...So, do you have any plan to realistically capture All Might, or should we run away to the exit?" Izuku asked. He was aware that, as much as he had Mirio backing him up during this exam, the chances of fighting and defeating All Might were close to zero.

"We could try to fight him, as I'm sure that we have what it takes to at least manage to handcuff All Might, but I leave the choice to you, if you want to run away or try to confront All Might, then I will help you in any way I can...but i think that it would be for the best for you to reach the exit. Don't feel ashamed for not wanting to fight All Might and taking the most sensible choice if you don't feel that you can face All Might." Mirio said. He had been told by Nezu that he was meant to support Izuku in this exam in any way that Izuku saw fit, so while he was unable to take charge of this exam as per Nezu's orders, nothing stopped him from trying to stir Izuku into taking the choice that he considered the most correct one based on the situation.

"So I'm the one who has to make that judgment call here? Great..." Izuku said. He hoped that Mirio would try to encourage a little more, so he could make up his mind about the idea of fighting All Might this time...but maybe it was for the best that Izuku would not fight All Might after all.

He knew that all those cruel experiments and surgeries that he had been subjected to in order to turn him into a creature that would kill All Might would be validated in a way if he managed to severely injure All Might, but at the same time, he knew that it wasn't good to live with that kind of fear for his whole life.

"...I have an idea." Izuku said a couple of minutes later as he came to a realization about this situation and came to a conclusion about what he should do.

"I'm listening..." Mirio said. He didn't know what Izuku had in mind at all, but he just hoped that he would listen to reason and run to the exit. He had the feeling that Izuku could fight All Might for real and be one of the few people in the world who could get the upper hand on All Might, since he was injured and his time was starting to run out.

All Might still refused to part ways with OFA, and while that allowed the hero to stave off for a couple of months the reduction of the amount of time that he was able to keep his buff form active, All Might started to feel that his body wasn't able to containt that power properly anymore and his time limit was getting shorter day by day.

Mirio wasn't that broken up about All Might constantly finding excuses to not give him OFA, a thing that Sir Nighteye sadly wasn't as willing to let go of as Sir Nighteye was subtly but constantly trying to pressure All Might to give OFA to Mirio already despite some of the concerns that All Might started to had as he had recently had some vivid dreams about the past wielders of OFA and saw that one of them died prematurely without facing AFO at all because his body was unable to contain the power that OFA had in those moments and his body quickly aged for some reason.

Those concerns, in a way, made the hero try to talk to both Nezu and his friend in the police to try to investigate the past wielders of OFA and to see if those dreams were just dreams or had more significance than they appeared.

Those thoughts occupied his mind as he listened to Izuku's plan to tackle this exam, a plan that he in the end decided to follow as it was a more sensible way for Izuku to pass this exam without facing All Might despite some of the concerns that he had with the execution of said plan, but as Nezu told him, he was going to follow and support Izuku for this exam.

"..." All Might was waiting for some time before he started to move in order to give Izuku a good head start in case he decided to walk to the exit instead of trying to confront him.

All Might was in the end chosen to be the one that would fight Izuku during this exam, as the other person that could face Izuku on more equal terms aside from himself was Eraserhead, and Nezu knew that Izuku still didn't want to deal with the man unless it was in a situation that he had no choice in the matter. And All Might felt partially conflicted at the idea of facing Izuku.

With the recent events related to the LOV and investigations made to those nomus making him aware that he failed to put a permanent end to AFO despite the bloody battle that ended crippling him for life, the sight of Izuku's scarred and partially modified body was a monument to his failures that only made the hero feel even worse about the fact that he was unable to fully seal the deal when he believed that he managed to kill AFO.

The USJ nomu may have been named the All Might killer by Shigaraki, and would have lived up to that name if it wasn't for Izuku's timely assistance, but when he was allowed full access to all the documents that Nezu had about Izuku's situation and saw that Izuku commented multiple times that those who did that to him wanted to turn him into an All Might killer, it made the hero think that he had failed as a hero, as his inability to kill AFO is what ended up ruining Izuku's life by setting the stage for AFO's minions to delve in whatever horrific scientific experimentation that they did to create those nomus in order to create something that it could kill him.

"You look quite lost in your thoughts, All Might." The voice of Izuku Midoriya, who then made an act of presence by walking to his position, managed to snap All Might out of his train of thought.

"Young Midoriya...? What are you doing here, and how did you find me?" All Might asked. That question made Izuku almost laugh a little.

"Really? Are you really asking me how I managed to find your position? You of all people should know what I can do..." Izuku replied. That reply made All Might feel somewhat stupid for a couple of seconds, as he was aware of both Echolocation and Mental Map and knew that Izuku would easily find someone who was in a city, as long as he was able to pick up a minimal amount of sound. But said moment of forgetfulness for his part was almost understandable, as the last thing that All Might expected was for Izuku to actively seek him out during this exam.

"Fair point...but are you sure that you really want to face me? You can still turn your back to run to the exit, and I will promise you that I will give you a head start." All Might said. He knew that maybe he was going a little too soft on Izuku if he was willing to give him a chance to walk away to run to the exit rather than facing him as it appeared that Izuku wanted to do, but considering that he felt somewhat guilty for what had happened to him, his decision to be more letient with him was born out of a desire to compensate the boy in a way for what All Might conisdered a faliure for his part that ended messing up his life.

"How nice of you, but I didn't come to fight you. I came for another reason." Izuku admitted. Those words, which caught both All Might and Nezu, who was overseeing this exam with multiple drones that were recording this exam so he could review it later, by surprise, as none of them expected Izuku to look for All Might and talk to him, considering how distant Izuku was with All Might during Heroic classes.

"I see..." That was the only thing that All Might could say, as not even he knew what Izuku had in mind.

"I know that Nezu is recording this exam with some drones, and that those recordings aren't going to be shared with the students, considering the situation, so I decided to take advantage of the situation in order to get something off my chest, and said something is how I feel about you, All Might." That surprised the hero, as he never expected Izuku to talk to him like this at all. The hero stood in silence, as if he was giving Izuku a chance to say whatever he wanted to say, and then Izuku decided to talk.

"I hated you. I hated you because your existence was the reason that the people who kidnapped me turned me into this... monster that I am now." Izuku started his speech. he let some time for All Might to listen to his opening before continuing his speech.

"This monstrous look...all those quirks that I had forced upon me...and all those surgeries to make my body naturally stronger that I was forced to endure against my will, all of that was done to me with one single purpose, said prupose was to be a perfect hero killer, one that would be even capable of killing you, All Might." Izuku said as he took a look at his black arms and his red nails before looking at All Might again.

"The first years after being rescued and before all that therapy managed to help me to cope better with my situation, I felt not only despair, but also the desire to just give up and to turn into the hero killer that it appeared that I was meant to be if those people had their way, but I managed to pull myself out of that abbys thanks to my family and nezu's help..." Izuku said, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to compose himself before continuing his speech.

"Coming to U.A. and having to interact with you made some of those thoughts and feelings resurface a little, as having to interact with the reason that all those nasty things were done to me made me somewhat upset, but then the USJ happened..." Izuku said. He saw that All Might was looking at the ground as he listened to him, but Izuku knew that he was doing that because he felt guilty and ashamed in a way for what had happened to Izuku.

"Meeting that nomu...that creature that Shigaraki called the "All Might Killer" and then for me to help you to take it down made me think about a lot of things." Izuku said as he was now close to revealing to All Might the conclusion that he had reached after all this time of self-reflection, after the events that had transpired before this exam.

"Helping you to defeat that creature that was meant to kill you in a way invalidated the reason for all the things that were done to me... and after thinking a lot about it, I decided that the best way for me to start healing for all the trauma that I had endured at the hands of those villains is to not be a hero because I want to seek revenge for what was done to me, but to be a hero in order to fully deny those people motives for doing this to me." Izuku said as he looked at the hero straight in his eyes before he told the last part of his emotional speech.

"I was meant to be a hero killer...one with the power and the means to kill you and other heroes, but I will not only refuse to kill heroes, I will also refuse to fight you, All Might. I know that maybe what I am saying to you right now, considering the situation that we are in, is quite stupid, but I was meant to be a weapon for those poeple meant to kill you, then I will deny that prupose as hard as I can, even if that means that I will have to fail this exam because I refuse to lay a hand on you in any way that could harm you." Izuku said. Catching All Might and the people who were watching that recording by surprise with that bold statement of his refusal to fight All Might, even if that meant failing this exam, only because he wanted to fully spit in the face of the people who experimented on him by not even giving himself the chance to harm All Might.

"I see..." All Might was only able to say that as he saw how resolute Izuku looked at that moment after stating his intention to not harm him at all as a way to spit in the face of the people who wanted to turn him into a hero-killing nomu.

"As much as I want to honor your wish to not face me, your refusal to engage me in this situation puts us in a little bit of a bind." All Might admitted. Izuku laughed a little and simply shook his head.

"Not really... in the next 18 seconds, Togata would reach the exit of Ground Beta, and that would put an end to this exam." Izuku said, and in those moments, All Might remembered that Mirio was meant to give support to Izuku during this exam.

All Might felt somewhat ashamed at the fact that he had forgotten about Mirio's participation in this exam as he got really invested in what Izuku was saying, to the point that he lost track of his surroundings and situation.

The sound of the alarm signaling that a student had reached the exit put an end to the exam in a way that one expected.

People expected that Izuku would be the one who would run away or would team up with Mirio to try to capture All Might, but their expectations had been subverted as they saw that Mirio had been the one who reached the exit while Izuku had managed to stall All Might by opening his heart to him with that emotional speech of his to allow Mirio to reach the exit with no issue.

Izuku may not be a genius or a brilliant mind that would make him a formidable strategist, but he was one person who spent a long part of his childhood interacting in a friendly way with Nezu for years, and he had definitely picked up a thing or two from the smartest creature on earth about how to plan things in order to find a path to victory.

Chapter Text

"..." Mirio was now looking at All Might after he and Izuku had reached the exit of the city, a couple of minutes after he reached the goal. He was feeling somewhat conflicted at the way that he decided to help Izuku pass this exam, as the last thing that he wanted to do was to turn away and run while relying on Izuku's crazy gambit of him managing to stall the hero by having a heart-to-heart with All Might to allow him to reach the exit unimpeded.

"I didn't expect this, to be honest." All Might said. He was looking at Mirio as he said that, but he wasn't accusing him or something like that, he was honestly surprised at the fact that Mirio would be willing to go along with Izuku's plan, a plan that Izuku explained to the hero as they reached the exit together.

"I know that, but I promised Nezu that I would abide by whatever Midoriya wanted to do for this exam and chose to support his plan regardless of what I thought about it. This exam was for him to do, and I was chosen to support him in a way that would help him to pass this exam without doing all the work for him." Mirio admitted.

"And you did what I asked...but if I'm honest with you, following my instructions or having a change of heart and coming back to help me with All Might wouldn't have ruined my plans." Izuku said. That surprised both All Might and Mirio.

"Why did you say that?" All Might asked, curious about why Izuku showed a lot of confidence in his previous statement.

"I mean...Nezu always said that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and it was better to be able to come up with a solid base for a plan that would allow you to come up with variations of said plan based on the situation at hand, rather than thinking that you could create a solid plan that was foolproof and that nothing could ruin it. Since we are now out of the situation, then I would tell you that if Mirio had decided to come back to me because his conscience forced him to not leave me behind to face you, then I would had taken the shock that his pressence would had caused you to quickly move to your position to use the capture tape on you, I was slowly getting closer to you as i talked to you about my resolution to not fight you just in case that Mirio wasn't fast enough to reach the exit." Izuku said.

That admission caught both Mirio and All Might by surprise, as neither of them expected that kind of thinking from someone who had shown to be quite average in all the writing exams, not failing them, but being the last in his class if their academic performance was ranked, but then they saw how an amused Nezu came out of nohwere and looked at both All Might and Mirio with a clear satisfied expresion on his face.

"Heh...you definitely paid attention during our conversations, Izuku. That admission of yours is going to make this next part easier..." Nezu said.

"What do you mean, Principal Nezu?" All Might asked.

"I mean that as much as Izuku managed to put an end to this exam by having Mirio reach the exit, I need to ask him why he considered that playing the stalling game with you over having Mirio do that for him was a tactically sound choice. Sure, his gambit paid off in the end, but I can't let him pass this exam with a good conscience if he chose that plan of his because he wanted to do something reckless." Nezu admitted. He may care for Izuku far more than other people under his watch, as he was the only person in the world, as far as he knew, who had gone through a similar experience as his, but he wasn't someone who would let a student pass this kind of test by sacrificing themselves for their partner unless they had a solid logic behind said action.

"And as Izuku had said, and I saw on those recordings that we had taken from your fight live, I can think that what he had said just now isn't just hot air and that he had something in mind when he ordered Mirio to run to the exit. So I can consider that he had passed this exam with flying colors." Nezu said, Izuku smiled a little after hearing that, but then he saw Nezu's face and knew that Nezu wasn't done yet.

"But make no mistake, Midoriya. You managed to get your plan to work thanks to the circumstances and the situation that played to your favor, but life is not always that convenient in this line of work, and you shouldn't..." Nezu started to say, but Izuku knew that Nezu wanted to say and decided to interrupt him to spare him from going all out with that speech.

"Shouldn't make a habit out of it. I know, principal. I know that this plan of mine worked more or less because the situation and circumstances played in my favor, and I won't consider that I can pull a similar stunt in the field with people who not only don't know my situation, but also would actively try to harm me." Izuku said.

Nezu was satisfied with that answer, and then the week for the final exams was officially over as Izuku's confrontation with All Might was the last one of the day, as it was the one that required more attention than the others, considering the circumstances around both Izuku and All Might.

What came next was the summer vacation and the summer camp that would be celebrated a couple of weeks after the summer vacation started. Nezu considered that they would choose to collaborate with the Pussycats again this year in order to have said summer camp celebrated on their property as they did last year.

There was some time left for the students of the hero course to unwind for a while, as while they were allowed to rest during the summer camp like the other students, they were encouraged to go to U.A. to train themselves so as to not lose the good training habits that they had picked up since the beginning of the school year, but their summer vacation would end the moment that the summer camp started.

Nezu just hoped that Izuku and the others would be able to make smart use of their time before the summer camp started.

"..." All Might was in a private plane to  I-island, with Mirio and his best friends in tow, as he had received a couple of invitations from his niece, Melissa Shield, in order to attend the upcoming I-expo, and he wanted for Mirio to enjoy himself for a while before he revelead to him his final decision about what is going to happen with OFA.

Mirio had been the winner of the sports festival of the third year, so he already had one invitation given to him by U.A., as two invitations to take part in the I-expo were part of the prizes that those students who won their respective sports festival would get this year. He decided to give his two invitations to both Nejire and Tamaki, and he took All Might's offer to use one of those in order to attend the I-expo with his friends this year.

A week had passed since the final exam in which not only Izuku made clear to All Might his decision to not fight him at all as a way to fight against what was meant to be his role as an All Might killer, but also that he was quite a clever mind whose intelligence shone through in combat situations despite his average performance in the academic department.

The fact that he took Mirio's possible decision to turn back to him and ignore his orders to run in consideration and had a plan ready in case was quite frightening in a way, if it wasn't for the fact that those plans of his came in what All Might considered a sparring match with higher stakes and not a real situation.

But that was now in the past, and now it was time to focus on the present. And what All Might was looking forward to the most was to meet up with one of his first genuine friends and his daughter in order to have a conversation that All Might believed that he needed to have with them, considering the circumstances.

All Might's time with OFA was now starting to get really short, as he was now having trouble keeping up for one hour despite the fact that he still kept the quirk with him. But now those strange dreams about the past predecessors of OFA started to make more sense to All Might, and that combined with the results of the investigations done by Nezu and the police, led All Might to make a particular decision about who would inherit OFA that would upset some people, but there was nothing that could be done about his final decision aside from the person that he had chosen to take his mantle refusing his request.

The focus of those dreams, that were focused on the life of the fourth wielder of OFA, the one who never faced AFO and died of mysterious circumstances, combined with the results of those investigations of the backgrounds and causes of death of the past wielders, gave All Might the idea that OFA wasn't as harmless as it apearedd at first glance.

All the past wielders that the police and Nezu managed to find info about their passing had suffered a brutal death, as they lost their lives facing AFO, except the fourth one. The results of the autopsy that was done on the fourth wielder, as the fifth wielder took him to a hospital before his passing, showed that his body had suffered an accelerated aging that made someone who was supposed to be 40 years old, who lived a healthy lifestyle as he trained in the mountains for almost 18 after he inherited OFA, to show sings of aging that made his body to be almost the one of a person that was 90 years old.

That made All Might think that maybe OFA was a quirk that was dangerous to people who had a quirk already, and that maybe the only safe bet to find a proper successor was to find someone who was quirkless to take up OFA from him. Maybe that was him jumping the gun with that idea, but a part of him made him believe that he was right on the money with this one, and that Sir Nighteye's decision to try to push him to give Mirio OFA would only condemn Mirio, a boy that was in the best years of his youth, to die an early death as OFA could potentialy made him to age rapidly to the point that he would be unable to hold into the quirk for as much time as he did.

All Might liked the boy, and refused to give Mirio his quirk in case his hunch about what OFA could do to him was correct. All Might was sure that Mirio would be a great hero on his own and that Sir Nighteye's attempts to try to turn Mirio into a carbon copy of him was an insult to Mirio's potential as a hero.

He hoped that this trip to the I-Island would allow him to put an end to this issue, so he could at least make sure that not all his efforts to uphold the hero society that Nana Shimura believed wouldn't be wasted, as the fact that AFO was alive after their previous confrontation and his time was running out was something that was in a way a stain on his long carrer as a her that All Might was unable to forgive himself as his lack of diligence in that regard had damaged far more people that he belived.

"Attention, passengers. We have reached our destination..." The voice of the pilot talking through the speakers snapped the hero from his thoughts, and then he and the others who were in that private plane decided to get out of there so they could enter the I-Island in order to take part in the I-expo.

All Might just hoped that this little trip to the I-island would go without anything bad happening that would ruin the mood or something like that, but it was too soon to say things like that...

"It can't be..." All Might said. He was in his smaller form, and he was surprised to see that he wasn't the only person from U.A. that was there in the I-Island by the looks of it...

"This place is too noisy..." The voice of Izuku Midoriya reached the hero's ears as he saw how Izuku and a group of 22 students, who were half from class 1-A and the other half from class 1-B, were also in the airport that was located on I-Island.

All Might knew that it was dumb of him to think that he wasn't going to see at least one or two kids from the hero course of the first year there, as it was Itsuka Kendo the one that won the sports festival of this year and she had at least two tickets to assist the I-Expo, meaning that at least heself and a classmate of hers would be here with that invitation, but that didn't explained the other 20 students that were there.

All Might wasn't aware of the fact that the presence of those 20 extra students was the result of Izuku winning a raffle that was celebrated in a shopping mall near U.A., which was giving away prizes to the people who showed that they had spent 10000 yen minimun in one of their stores by showing a receipt of their purchase.

Izuku and a group of classmates decided to stop by the shopping mall a day after they had a friendly swimming competition in one of the pools that was inside U.A., and Izuku purchasing 10000 yen worth of manga books in manga shop, which gave him a receipt that allowed him to participate in that raffle, and he was lucky enough to gain the grand prize that was 20 tickets to the upcoming I-Expo with all the expenses covered.

Izuku saved some of those tickets for his friends, and the other tickets were spread among the others. That, in the end, meant that all the girls of the first year and a couple of boys of the first year of the hero course were on the I-Island to All Might's surprise.

All Might hoped that this was the most surprising thing that would happen during the whole week, but one should never tempt fate...

Chapter Text

"I didn't expect you to be here, but it's good to see you again, Midoriya." Mirio said. All Might had moved discreetly to his room in the hotel that they were all sharing in his scrawny form, and that felt both Mirio and his friends, and Izuku and those students of class 1-A and 1-B who came with him in the lobby of that hotel.

"Well...I didn't expect to be here either, but I won the big prize of a raffle that was held in a shopping mall near U.A., and imagine what the grand prize was." Izuku said.

"Whoa...that is quite lucky." Nejire said. She was interacting with Izuku for the first time, and she still had in her mind the warnings that Mirio gave to her to avoid mentioning anything about his appearance, as it was a sour topic for Izuku that would only reopen old wounds that weren't fully healed.

"Yeah...I was there with my friends and some of my classmates after we finished a swimming competition in a pool in U.A., a competition that I didn't participate in. After buying 10000 yen worth of manga, I took the purchase receipt that they gave me and used it to take part in the raffle, and it appears that luck was on my side that day." Izuku admitted. He didn't have the intention to participate in the beginning, but Kinoko convinced him to just give it a shot, as the consolation prize was a coupon of 5000 yen to make purchases in that mall, and it was not like he could lose anything if he took part in that harmless raffle. No one expected him to get the grand prize, which would allow him to take 19 people with him to the upcoming I-Expo that was going to be celebrated the next week.

"A swimming competition...?" Tamaki said in his usual way, which was with him facing away from the group and leaning into a wall that was near him to hide his face from them.

"Yes. Principal Nezu recommended us to not be lazy during the summer vacation and to come to U.A. to make use of their facilities to train from time to time, so as not to get out of shape. And Kendo sent a message to the chat group of the class. She said that she managed to convince Yaoyorozu to have a friendly competition with the students of class 1-A in the swimming pools that were there, and that made us get together that day to spend almost the whole day in U.A. competing with each other to see who was the best swimmer in the first year... or at least the second best, because good luck trying to compete with Asui on a swimming race when she performs the best while been on the water." Izuku said.

Tsuyu may have felt somewhat flustered after hearing that kind of praise, but it was true. Her quirk, what gave her body to possess some properties that made her almost a mix between a human and a frog, made her more suited in a way to partake in heroic duties where there was a massive amount of water involved, she wasn't a sitting duck on land, but she had some weaknesses thanks to those frog like properties, an one of those weaknesses readere it's ugly head during the USJ incident because she was sent to the conflagration area and was in realy danger to die of dehydration, because the massive heat of that city convinced with those flames almost killed her if it wasn't for Izuku and Kinoko managing to quickly taking her out of the place before she could succum to the heat.

"...I wasn't in the mood for swimming and just acted like a life guard in a way, but instead of saving people from drowning in the pool, I was keeping watch on the resident pervert midget of class 1-A and made sure that he kept his hands on himself and away from the girls." Izuku said.

Everyone remembered how Izuku was the only one who came without a swimsuit, sporting a white T-shirt with short sleeves, his usual bandages covering his arms, legs, and feet, blue short pants, and black flip flops. He told him that he wasn't confortable with the idea of showing that much skin to people, a thing that his male classmates knew as he was the last to not only change clothes in the looker room, waiting for everyone to leave the room before he changed clothes, but also was the one that waited for everyone to shower first before taking a shower, and that he pretty much came here to spend some time with them even if he didn't do much over staying on his home.

That statement of his, in a way, showed that Izuku was starting to make some real progress with some of his issues if he was willing to spend his free time being with them, even if they were doing something that he was unwilling to do for his own issues. Izuku wasn't bored there as he was busy capturing the purple-haired midget that tried to latch onto the girl's back with his quirk in order to perv on them, and submerging him in water to get him to cool off a little from his heated-up state caused by his own perverted delusions.

The number of times that Izuku had to grab Mineta as he wanted to latch on to a girl's back, a thing that he did to one of his classmates to have her carry him to the finishing line during the obstacle race, almost reached the triple digits, as Mineta was relentless in his desire to live out his fantasies, but Izuku caught him every time, and that allowed the girls to not be that unconfortable with that creep arround them. It was decided that Mineta wouldn't be part of this kind of activity the next time that they did something like this, but that was something that none of the students of the third year needed to know.

Their conversation then moved to more mundane topics, and in the end, they decided that they would stick around at least for the first days in order to enjoy the I-Expo and all that it had to offer them. They hoped that there wouldn't be any kind of incident during their stay there, but who knows what would happen during the I-Expo?

While Izuku and his friends, including Mirio and his own friends, were enjoying the privileges that came with the Early Access Event passes that they had, which allowed them to access to a lot of services that went from entering a special pavilion that was only open for those with the correct passes that held inside a beautiful blue museum showcasing super-advanced support equipment to things like cafes, musical shows and other things that had been set up in the area for the occasion. All Might was having an important talk with David Shield and Melissa Shield about the future.

All Might knew that he had been the person who tried to deter Melissa from becoming a hero a long time ago, as he didn't want her to get himself into similar situations as he did during his career as a hero while having no quirk to protect herself, as she was a quirkless girl that wanted to be a hero just like her beloved "Uncle Might", and now that the situation had pushed him to try to ask Melissa to be a hero and inherit his quirk after telling her when she was a child that she shoudn't become a hero made All Might to feelt quite conflicted.

He remembered how Nana Shimura was willing to give him a chance to be a hero, to the point of giving him the quirk that he had now, despite being a quirkless boy with a lot of hope but little power, and to deny Melissa that chance when she was a kid was something that still haunted All might as he felt like he was being an hypocrite when he denied Melissa the chance to be a hero when he could had helped her to be the hero that she wanted to be in the same way that Nana allowed him to be the hero that he was today. Still, the thing was that he was emotionally invested in Melissa as he considered her a part of his family, and all his experiences as a hero made him not want her to follow the same path as he did in case he gave her OFA.

Melissa was the one who was bringing that hypocrisy to his face during this conversation, and All Might was unable to refute her words at all, but in the end, Melissa decided to accept All Might's request to inherit his quirk in order to become the ninth wielder of OFA.

All Might saw how his old friend was looking at him with an unreadable expression as he saw how Melissa accepted his request to inherit his quirk and become a hero, despite the fact that his request would force Melissa to train her body in order to be able to withstand the power that OFA had now.

He then decided to keep holding OFA for a little longer to give Melissa some time to train herself, as the last thing he wanted was to give her the quirk already and to see her hurt herself or worse because her body wasn't ready yet to contain OFA.

All Might knew that the amount of time that he had left to be able to use OFA in his condition was getting shorter and shorter every day, and while it was a foolish dream to think that he would be able to make that little time that he had left to count so the amount of burdens that melissa would face in the future would be smaller, All Might wanted to hold into that fool dream of his so he could at least have a more clear concience for what he was doing.

All Might's career as a hero had unfortunately left some people in precarious situations, and now that he had decided to commit to that decision of his to give OFA to Melissa, All Might had one more person to add to that short list.

The conversation that Izuku had with him during the final exam still weighed in his conscience, as he could feel that Izuku's grievances with how his life had been almost destroyed because of his inability to put an end to AFO were quite real even though Izuku used those grievances of his to stall the hero during that exam to secure a victory.

All Might hoped that he would at least be able to compensate Izuku for his lack of diligence for not ending AFO before his career as a hero was forced to end. But that wasn't for him to decide as only time would tell if he would get what he wanted...

The day of the I-Gala came, and Izuku and all those kids who came from U.A. were at the party alongside a lot of heroes from all around the world.

"You know, Midoriya? The only thing that you need to cosplay as a secret service agent is an earpiece." Neito Monoma said. All of the kids that came from U.A. had to wear some fancy clothes in order to attend the party, and while some of them were able to look like they were part of the party with them, Izuku was one of the few who looked far more menacing in that suit than everyone else in the room. Maybe it was because the scars on his face, combined with those sunglasses to hide his eyes, made him appear menacing enough to pass as a secret agent who was a bodyguard or something like that, or at least that was what Izuku thought Monoma was trying to imply.

"Heh...as long as I don't have to take a bullet for someone or have a 'Get down, Mister or Madam president!' moment, then I can live with looking like this." Izuku replied.

Monoma had been one of his classmates who got one of the invitations that Izuku won after the girls of both classes and Izuku's friends got theirs from him. And with Itsuka using the extra invitation that she won to invite Momo Yaoyorozu to the I-Island after they became friends after their shared intership with Uwabami, that meant that there were only 7 invitations for the boys of both classes.

Izuku refused to even consider giving one to Mineta after having to deal with him for a couple of hours, and that, in a way, ended up making the ratio in which those remaining invitations were spread between the other classes more skewed in favor of Class 1-B.

Sen Kaibara, Kosei Tsuburaba, Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, and Neito Monoma were the ones who ended up taking those invitations, as the others were either not interested or had other plans that they considered more important than taking part in the I-expo. That made the 3 remaining invitations to go to Tenya Ida, who barely managed to avoid being expelled from the hero course, even though he was willing to go full vigilante to avenge his brother, and almost ended up getting killed by Stain if it wasn't for sheer dumb luck saving his life in the last second because Nezu considered that what he went trought against stain was punishment enough but warned him that he would be expeled if he pulled a similar stunt in the future, Eijiro Kirishima, who became friends with Tetsutetsu after their 'epic' fight during the last event of the sports festival and Tetsutetsu managed to convice Izuku to give him one of those last invitations, and Mezo Shoji.

Izuku wanted to unwind a little during the party and keep both Echolocation and Mental Map turned off as he didn't believe that he would need those quirks active at the moment, and because being overly paranoid all the time was bad for his health.

He spent some time just hanging around with his classmates or Mirio and his friends, waiting for All Might to appear to give a speech for the people here, but then a group of people armed with firearms breached into the room where the party was being celebrated and the security systems on the island started to malfunction and restrained all the heroes instead of the villains. That was the signal that the party was now over and that Izuku and the others had somehow found themselves knee deep into a delicate situation.

Chapter Text

Everything that happened after the heroes were restrained by the security systems of the I-Island happened was too much for Izuku to process at that moment, as the amount of info that his mind was processing when he triggered Echolocation and Mental Map out of instint was big enough to distract him for a couple of minutes, and by the time that he was able to have a moment to catch his bearings, he was sitting on the ground allongside his friends, watching how everyone in that room had been taken hostage at the moment.

"Please, let this be a bad dream..."

"Mommy...I'm scared."

"Goddamit...if only I weren't tied up right now...!"

"There has to be something we can do..." Izuku was picking up the sounds that a lot of people were making right now in this room, and it was clear that people were freaking out at the moment, as the sight of all those heroes being reduced to that pitiful state like that was something that no one was able to even think that would happen in a world that still enjoyed the age of peace that All Might had brought upon the world.

"Midoriya...are you okay now? You spaced out for a while when those people entered the room..." Pony said. She had been the one who managed to get Izuku on the ground before the gunmen decided to make an example out of him, like they did with a drunk civilian who got shot in one leg because he refused to stand down after the leader of that group, a villain named Wolfram, told his men to rough the hostages up a little if they refused to behave.

"Yeah, I was just too caught in the moment to react..." He said as he was closing his eyes in order to use Mental Map to get a better read of the situation.

"..." Izuku was now able to track the position of the gunmen in the room and was able to locate the security systems that had been used to leave all the heroes in such a pitiful position.

"What are we going to do...?" Kinoko said. She was near Pony and Ibara when the commotion happened, and she saw how Pony got Izuku down to prevent those people from shooting him.

"For now, we can only hope and pray..." Ibara said as she joined her hands in order to pray for some form of divine intervention or something.

"...?" Izuku opened his eyes in those moments, and for some strange reason, he was focused on Ibara's hands at that moment, as if the motions of her hands were a hidden clue in a criminal case that could solve it if Izuku paid the right attention to it.

"Midoriya...is something wrong?" Monoma said, concerned as he saw how Izuku suddenly started to stare at Ibara's hands for some reason.

"Yes..., I got a plan." Izuku said, making sure not to raise his voice to the point that those gunmen could hear him.

"Huh?!" Awase was surprised to hear that, but then Izuku gestured to them to keep quiet and to get closer to him in order to explain his plan to them.

Maybe this was not the time for any kind of heroics, as the lives of the civilians and the restrained heroes could be put in danger should someone decided to do something about the situation, but Izuku wasn't going to be idle in this situation and do nothing when a lot of lives were at stake, and he had even less of a reason to do nothing as he considered that he had the perfect tools at hand to turn the tides in this particular situation.

Izuku managed to escape that hell of earth that was whatever place he had been confined for two years, and a bunch of people with guns keeping him in this room as a hostage were nothing in comparison.

"What the...!?" one of those gunmen said as the room was quickly engulfed with a white and humid fog that put all of those people on edge.

"Someone is trying to get cute here? Fine, let's gun down everyone in the room then!" one of those gunmen said, trying to pull the trigger of his gun as he aimed at a group of civilians, but for some reason, his assault rifle wasn't firing any bullets at all.

He wasn't the only one who was having that problem, as the other gunmen followed suit and tried to fire at the civilians, and found out that their firearms were malfunctioning out of nowhere.

"What the fuck...!?" one of those gunmen said after he detached the magazine of his rifle to see if something was going on with his ammo, and was surprised to see that multiple mushrooms had emerged out of nowhere from the part of the rifle in which the magazine was supposed to be attached.

"NOW!" The voice of Izuku Midoriya echoed in the room as he then got up from the ground and rushed at the gunmen as fast as he could to incapacitate them before they could react. At the same time, Ibara used her quirk to move the vines on her head to destroy the security systems in the room by aiming those vines at the ceiling of the room and using her vines to pierce those devices that had been used to create those restraining devices that had tied up the heroes.

Momo Yaoyorozu and those who had been near her were some of the students of U.A. that managed to react first to Izuku's call to action, as the fact that Kyoka managed to hear what Izuku was planning to do allowed her to share that info with Momo and the others and that allowed them to be ready to jump to action when they saw how Izuku quickly got up from the ground and started to punch those gunmen with his fist covered with either fire or ice. By the time the gunmen were out of commission, all the students of U.A. were already up and ready to try to take control of the situation as best they could.

Nejire and Tamaki, the students of the third year of the hero course, and those who had far more experience and a temporary license to act as heroes in case the situation required them to step up, were quickly to cordinate all the students of U.A. in order to try to have them to release the heroes from their restrains, as the destruction of those devices on the celling wasn't enough to free them for their bondage before they went on the pursuit of Wolfram and his crew.

Mirio had been the one who managed to sneak away from the room seconds before everyone was taken hostage with, using his quirk to phase through the walls, leaving his tuxedo and other pieces of clothing behind, as one of the bad things about his quirk was that unless his clothes were infused with his DNA, they would simply fall off. Mirio kept his hero suit below his clothes, as it was the only piece of clothing that would work with his quirk and was the only one that was now trying to stop Wolfram and his crew from getting away with his crimes.

As much as some of the students of the first year wanted to protest the fact that they had been relegated to a supportive role even though they had been the ones who had pulled a fast one on the villains, they at least understood the fact that some of them had crossed a line when they used their quirks to stop those gunmen, and while a lot of people wound't complain about what they did considering the circunstances, it would be for the best for them to not push envelop that far and accept that they wound avoid getting in troble for their illegal use of their quirks in a situation that they had no persision to use it.

"...Give me a moment." Izuku said as he grabbed the metallic parts of the device that was keeping All Might tied up and then crushed with his bare hands while enduring the electric discharge that said device was releasing at the moment to prevent Izuku from releasing the hero.

That electric discharge wasn't strong enough to kill someone, but they were meant to prevent anyone from trying to free the captive from them, to prevent any ally of the captive from freeing them. Some of Izuku's classmates had been temporarily incapacitated with that shock, leaving Izuku as the only person in the whole room who was able to tank that electric shock in order to free those heroes by relying on the electric resistance that he gained during the cavalry race when he absorbed Kaminari's indiscriminate electric attack to be able to just destroy those devices.

"Thank you, young Midoriya..." All Might said. He was still concerned for both David and Melissa, as both had been taken hostage by Wolfram, and now that he was freed from those restraints, he wanted to go to the rescue, but he saw how Izuku's arms were shaking after he endured that electric shock, and was concerned for the boy.

"Don't worry about me...do what you need to do and save the day already." Izuku said, his fingers and wrists were trembling a little, but he was starting to get things under control and refused to make All Might worry about him.

"I see...just don't overdo it." All Might simply said, seeing that Izuku did not want to worry the hero too much about him. he then turned his body to one of the doors that both Nejire and Tamaki had gone through in order to try to catch up with Mirio, and he then followed suit.

"Okay then...back to work." Izuku said as he then focused his efforts on breaking those devices as fast as he could in order to free as many heroes as he could in case he would pass out or something. His hands were now unbandaged as he had used the fire and ice that he obtained when he absorbed Todoroki's ice to create that humid mist that quickly filled the room to allow both Kinoko and Monoma, who had copied Kinoko's quirk, to spam Kinoko's mushroom creation quirk so they could create as many mushrooms as possible inside those firearms in order to render them useless so Izuku could then attack those villains before they had the chance to retaliate.

The only part of his plan that hadn't worked so well was that the destruction of those devices on the ceiling hadn't freed all the heroes from those restraints, but that wasn't Ibara's fault. She did her part flawlessly, and if there was someone to blame, it was the guy who had taken over all the security systems of I-Island.

There was little that Izuku and the others could do aside from trying to free those heroes, a duty that fell into his hands, and to block some of the entrances to this room to prevent those robots that were also part of the security systems of I-Island from entering the room and capturing them again.

Was it too much to ask for things to go without anything villainous happening in the vicinity that forced Izuku or other people from U.A. to get involved? The answer was yes, and Izuku resigned himself to the idea that the chances of anything villainous happening that could make things go out of script were higher than expected. That resignation came with the fact that Izuku believed that his role in this mess wasn't over yet by a long shot.

Only time would tell what his next part to play in this particular mess would be...

Chapter Text

"Melissa...!" Both Mirio and David shouted as they saw how Woflram decided to make a showing of the power that he had gained after he put on the quirk ampification device by bending all the metal in the rooftop area to make Melissa fall to her death as a way to punish David for trying to use his daughter's well being as a bargaining chip for his compliance to Wolfram's demands

David's heart almost shattered to pieces as this situation was in part his fault, as his fear of All Might's eventual retirement made him fall for his colleague's deception to recover the quirk amplification device by hiring Wolfram and his gang to stage a fake kidnapping and incident on the whole island to be able to recover the quirk amplification device. That, combined with All Might's recent decision to choose Melissa to be his successor because her quirklessness was a blessing in disguise for those who inherited OFA, made his decision not to pull back from this plan to feel even worse, but because it appeared that Wolfram was real villain after all, then maybe his fate had been sealed the moment he agreed to take part in Samuel's plan.

Mirio had managed to reach the rooftop after quickly dealing with two of Wolfram's most powerful allies at the same time and leaving both Tamaki and Nejire, who managed to catch up with him for some reason, to face a guy named Swordkill, but it appeared that he wasn't fast enough to save the day for good.

Wolfram, who was now getting cocky thanks to the rush of dopamine that he was feeling thanks to the quirk amplification device, making him feel way more powerful than he was supposed to be, was taking every chance to mock and belittle Mirio and David for their failures to get a kick out of their misery.

Mirio was able to shrug off those petty insults as some part of his training in the previous year as a hero student was dedicated to learning how to identify when villains were trying to rile you up with words and learn how to not fall for that, a lesson that not many heroes were able to fully learn, but david was unable to do anything but to wallow in misery and despair as destiny had taken away his daughter's life for commiting the mistake of letting himself getting swayed by Samuel's plan to recover the quirk amplification device from the vault that it was stored.

Time lost meaning to David as he wordlessly stared at the battlefield and saw how Mirio valiantly fought against Wolfram, then he saw how two other kids came to give support to  Mirio, but he then stopped looking at them and stared at the ground in despair.

Wolfram used metal from all around his surroundings in order to barricade himself inside a fortress made of scrap metal, causing even more destruction on the rooftop of the building and the surrounding towers within his reach.

Mirio had a plan, and said plan consisted of trying to get near Wolfram in order to take that device that was empowering him away from him, but said plan was easier said than done. Mirio had unfortunately pushed himself a little harder than he needed in order to reach the Shield family, and now he wasn't sure if he could manage to succeed at the moment.

Nejire and Tamaki were trying their best to give Mirio some support, with Nejire attacking from a distance with the energy that she created with her quirk in order to weaken Wolfram's defenses while Tamaki was relying on whatever he had eaten last to use his quirk to try to take some of the pressure from Mirio, but the quirk amplification device was definitely putting the fight on Wolfram's favor by allowing him to overpower the three most powerful students of the hero course that U.A. had to offer.

"United States of SMASH!" All Might's booming voice echoed in that desolate rooftop as everyone saw how an enraged All Might came out of nowhere and delivered a brutal blow that, in normal circumstances, could be considered a bit overkill.

"Is that all...?" But sadly, it wasn't enough if Wolfram's mocking voice could be taken into consideration.

"You bastard...!" All Might said, clenching his teeth as he tried to ram his fist through the block of scrap that Wolfram had created to block his attack, which had managed to block one of his most powerful ultimate moves like it was nothing.

All Might had rushed to the top of the building as fast as he could, and only stopped in his tracks after he saw how an injured David Shield was looking at the ground, with a face full of resignation and despair that was the prelude to a heart-wrenching news that had angered All Might.

Melissa had fallen to her death after Wolfram had used his newly enhanced power, and to hear that pushed All Might to the point that he was willing to push himself past his actual limitations if that meant that he could at least avenge her demise by fully defeating that villain that caused her death, but not even his justified anger was enough to tip the scales to their favor.

All Might had tried to fight as hard as he could in order to tear  through the near-unbreakable defenses that were now protecting Wolfram from facing the heroes on more equal grounds. But no matter how hard he punched that steel or how he tried to coordinate himself with the big three of U.A. to try to create an opening to pierce those defenses, there was no way for them to make a dent in Wolfram's fortress that protected his body.

"David Shield's genius lives up to its reputation by the looks of it. This thing had made me strong enough to overpower the three most promising hero students that Japan had to offer, and All-Might himself, and left them completely useless against me. I'm never taking this thing off! But I think I know the best way to raise the price of the copies of this device that will force David Shield to make after I am done with you four. I can charge whatever I want if people know that it has been used to kill the world's Number 1 Hero!"  Wolfram said, completely assured of his own victory, as the sight of All Might and those hero students had been unable to harm him at all was something that overwhelmed the villain's mind with euphoria.

"I'm not done yet...!" All Might said, trying not to show weakness in the face of danger, but the truth was that he was running out of time, and they had no chance to defeat Wolfram by the looks of it.

"Allow me to fix that!" Wolfram shouted, and then multiple tendrils of metal emerged from his fortress, all of them moved to All Might's position in order to impale him on the spot.

"ALL MIGHT...!" both Mirio and David shouted as they saw how those metallic tendrils were moving at an incredible speed. All Might reacted a second later, and while it was clear that he would be able to avoid the most fatal blows, he would definitely sustain some injuries that would put an end to his contributions in this fight...if the intervention of a little someone flipped the script in that precise moment.

"In your dreams!" That was a voice that David Shield was able to hear, as something that appeared to be a drill made of flames came out of nowhere and got in the way of All Might and those tendrils, melting them on the spot as the heat of those flames was strong enough to melt them.

"No way..." That is what Mirio, Nejire, and Tamaki thought as they saw how that drill made of flames turned out to be Izuku Midoriya, who, for some reason, had a pair of flaming wings sprouting from his back, his legs and arms were on fire for some reason, and said fire appeared to be able to melt the metal that Wolfram was using to attack them and protect himself at the moment.

"Sorry for being late to the party...But I have to save a nice girl...or lady, I didn't bother to ask her age, who was falling from the sky and came as fast as I could after helping her take over the control room of the security systems of this place." Izuku said. He was walking to the outside with his classmates and friends in order to try to create a blockade to prevent those robots from enerting the building, and when he picked up with Echolocation that someone was falling to the ground and was realy close to his position, he had no choice but to activate Terrain Master and spread those wings of his to save her from falling to her death.

Izuku was sure that he now had no choice but to reveal the truth about who he was to them, as there was no way for him to dodge any question about how he was able to spurt wings like that if the lie that he told them about what his quirk could do, a lie that Nezu told him to say to make them to not pester him to much with that queation, didn't say anything about him being able to summon wings, but he wasn't as bothered by that though as he expected. The mention of him saving someone who was falling to the sky made David Shield feel some hope, as he wanted to believe that Izuku was talking about his daughter.

"Who the fuck are you!?" Wolfram shouted in frustration. All that euphoria that he was feeling as he was on the top of the world, as he was overpowering All Might and those kids, suddenly evaporated as he saw how that weird kid with wings had melted the steel that formed those tendrils.

"Who I am is irrelevant to you. But, what I can do, on the other hand, is what you should be asking." Izuku replied.

"Don't get smart with me, kid!"  Wolfram said, completely shaken, as something as simple as melting that steel was bothering him to the point that he felt like a cornered animal.

"Fine then, let's skip the whole trash-talking and get straight to the part where you lose!" Izuku said, and then he reignited his flames and launched himself to where Woflram had his body positioned in that fortress that he made.

Izuku's flames were not only protecting Izuku from any of that metal that Wolfram could create, but they also allowed Izuku's arms and legs to cause real damage to that impenetrable fortress that Wolfram created as the heat that he was generating was strong enough to melt it to a point that Wolfram was unable to fully repair the damage cause with ease. That allowed Nejire's energy blast to pierce through that steel with ease after Izuku's flames had affected an area of that fortress.

"Hadou Senpai! I create as many weak spots in this fortress of steel for your attacks to go through! Make them count!" Izuku shouted as he then continued his high-speed flight around Wolfram's creation, punching it, kicking it, and clawing at it if he had to in order to allow Nejire to have as many weak spots to shoot from a distance with her quirk.

"Okay, Midoriya...I will make this one count!" Nejire said as she positioned herself in the air in a way that would allow her to hit a certain part of Wolfram's body that would definitely put an end to the fight if what she believed was right. She had been piercing that fortress now with her attacks, thanks to Izuku's quirk melting that steel to the point that her energy attacks were now effective, and she saw how Wolfram was positioned inside that iron fortress of his.

Nejire put a little less energy in this last energy blast, and when she fired it and saw that said attack reached the steel, she hoped for the best as she saw how it went through it.

"NO, NO, NO!" Wolfram said as he felt something hit him in the back of his head, breaking the quirk amplification device and rendering him completely powerless now, as he only managed to keep All Might and the Big Three at bay thanks to the massive power boost that said device provided him.

Wolfram had little time to try to think about a plan to try to escape from this fight now that the tables were turned at him, as All Might jumped to his position and tore him out from his metalic fortress, All Might's menancing eyes were now putting the fear of god on the villain that had been lording over them a couple of minutes ago when his power surpased all of them.

The only mercy that Wolfram would receive now that he had lost the device that had allowed him to overpower All Might was that he would live to see another day, as Izuku's sharing the news of the potential survival of Melissa Shield allowed All Might to control his anger so as to not do something that he could regret in the future.

But there was no way around this. Wolfram had completely lost, as not only the hostages that he had taken had been rescued, but the device that had empowered him had been destroyed during the fight.

There were a lot of questions that would need to be answered after this fight, but for now, the heroes had won despite how powerful Wolfram had showed to be. The most important thing that had speled Wolfram's defeat was the fact that all that power that he had shown against All Might and the Big Three came not from himself, but came from the device that had empowered him to that point, once Nejire managed to snipe him and destroy that device, Wolfram quickly lost every chance to win this fight. There was also the fact that Izuku's decision to interfere in the fight after saving Melissa Shield, with his quirk being able to fully counter Wolfram's metal manipulation quirk with the flames that he could create, what enabled Nejire's action of destroying that device, but the important lesson here is that Wolfram over reliance on a device that had given him a massive power boost and his inability to cash that massive check that he was writing after said device was destroyed was what had defeated that villain in the end.

Chapter Text

"..." Izuku saw how all his classmates, those of class 1-B and the people of class 1-A who had joined him in this event that was supposed to be celebrated in one of the safest places in the world, were looking at him, expecting him to say his piece. He had called them after they reached the hotel, after the incident was resolved, and while Izuku knew he was inconveniencing them, as he was aware that everyone here wanted to go to bed already. Izuku knew that question about his wings was something that he wasn't going to avoid, so he decided to take that bull by the horns.

"Look, I know that a picture is worth a thousand words, but after what you saw today about my...quirk, I think that you will need to get both the picture and the words to fully understand." Izuku said, and then he decided to take off the remains of his ruined shirt. He heard how some of the girls were quite appalled and even one of the girls of 1-A was calling him a pervert, a thing that also came from Iida's mouth as he was saying that he was doing was unbecoming of a hero student, but all conversation died on the spot when they saw how Izuku's naked chest was fully covered with multiple scars. He then turned his back and showed them his scarred back and the spots in his shoulder blades that became almost as dark as his arms after Terrain Master resurfaced and made those wings to emerge from his shoulder blades.

"I'm not taking my pants down if that is what some of you are thinking about that I'm going to do now, because I assure you that there are also scars down there." Izuku said and then put the shirt back on. The suit that he wore for the party had been destroyed to a point that it had barely any repair, but those were just clothes, and considering that no innocent blood was spilled today and no loss of life had occurred for both the civilians and heroes, then he was willing to accept that monetary net loss.

"Midoriya...why did you show us this?" Kinoko asked.

"Because I made a decision...a decision about telling you people the truth about me, and that people also included those of 1-A, as you people had seen too much about me, and I prefer to keep the record straight about what you had seen to avoid any future misunderstandings or having any of you people having crazy conspiratory theories about me, so might as well let you people to learn the truth even if I'm not that close to you as I am to class 1-B." Izuku admitted. He saw how the group of 21 people in his hotel room was now getting quieter, as if they wanted to let Izuku speak.

"I will have to go back to my childhood, but I promise you that I will not keep you all here for too long. The day has been too long considering the whole mess with those villains, and I am sure that everyone here wants to go to bed now." Izuku said as he then decided to do something that he was afraid was going to happen eventually, the truth about himself was something that would come to light for the people around him in one way or another, and as Nezu told him, if there was no way for him to keep the lid on some piece of sensible infomation, then might as well keep control in the way of how said info is shared.

"When I was 5 years old...A villain kidnapped me as I was in the mountains near the city. I had a disagreement with a friend after a silly incident in the river, and as I was running to go home, while crying about that discussion, a portal made of black mist quickly formed in front of me, and I was unable to avoid it." Izuku said, starting his tale after he closed the door of his room in the hotel, just in case.

"I spent 2 years being confined in a lab, being experimented on in ways that you people would have trouble believing could be possible, but those experiments not only were real, but they had a dark purpose." Izuku's tale continued as he saw how everyone in the room was listening to his words and how he had admitted that he had not only been kidnapped as a kid, but had been experimented on.

"And what was that purpose...Midoriya?" Pony asked. She asked what everyone in the room was asking themselves at the moment.

"To become the ultimate hero killing machine... one with the power to kill not only All Might, but also every hero that stood in the way of the people that did this to me...that same people that was behind the All Might killer that fought All Might during the USJ." Izuku's words caused a lot of commotion in the group, but they had the sense to keep their opinions to themselves for the moment and let Izuku continue his story with little distractions.

"That...Nomu, as that villain called, is just a heavily modified human that not only was heavily experimented on...but also had something that no normal person could have...and that thing was more than one quirk." Izuku said.

"That...thing had two quirks!? but that's...!" Ibara said. She had a lot of difficulties accepting the fact that a person could have more than one quirk, a thing that was shared by the rest of the world, but she was the one who said what everyone in that room was thinking.

"Impossible? Under normal circumstances, you would be right, but the people that did this to me...they had access to resources that made said impossibility a reality." Izuku said, his tone of voice showing that he was quite bitter after telling those words to them.

"While I was confined and experimented on. I had fewer moments in which I had a sense of clarity that allowed me to listen to the conversations that the people who did this to me had, as they believed that I was still heavily sedated. Considering that I had little to do in those years, those conversations stuck in my mind for years despite all the therapy that I did to try to move on from those events." Izuku continued his tale and told them about what he remembered from the conversations of those people about the whole experimentation to force people to have more that one quirk, how a lot of people ended braindead because their minds broke under the strees that the body endures by having more that one quirk, and how he had the misfortune to be far more resistant to the process of having quirks implanted on him to the point that he avoided having his brains fried by the amount of quirks that they forced on him.

"Nomu, that is how those people called their test subjects...and I was the most interesting guinea pig that they had because for one reason or another, I survived what would have killed normal people... and then it came the day that things got really worse for me." Izuku said as he then pointed at his eyes with one of his fingers.

"My arms...my legs...and my eyes...those that you people see that I have now, those aren't the ones that I was born with. Those people tried to see if they could implant nomufied body parts on a person to enhance their performance while allowing long procedures, and those people tore my eyes from my eyesockets, severed my arms below my forearms, and my legs were removed in order to insert the body parts that you people are seeing that I have today in place of the ones that i was born with to satisfy the morbid curiosity of a demented scientist that wanted to create a humanoid weapon that could be used to kill heroes..." Izuku said. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as he wasn't sure if he could continue talking about what happened to him. He was surprised by the fact that he managed to come this far with what he had told them.

"But in one of their experiments, the one in which they forced into me a quirk that would turn me into a nearly mindless weapon that would follow orders of those people, it caused my body to reach the limit of what I could handle, and...and I died on the operating table as all my organs failed to work, with my brain bleeding like crazy despite having a couple of self healing quirks implanted on me, and my body was sent to a disposal area. That could have been how things ended up for me...But I managed to return to life a couple of minutes later after my body was sent to that area, and then I managed to escape that facility by using all the quirks that those villains forced on me to escape to the surface." Izuku said. He then told them that he aimlessly ran through that city that he didn't know at all, and maybe by sheer luck or pure divine intervention, he crossed paths with Principal Nezu, who took him away from that place and helped him to return to what remained of his life before he was kidnapped.

"I was declared dead not even a week after my kidnapping, as the police of Mustafu barely gave a damn for a supposedly quirkless kid, but my parents never lost hope to find me...and despite looking like this. I managed to return to my family and rebuild my life in a way. It took years of therapy, among other things that Nezu managed to get for me, to help me heal somewhat from what happened to me. But while the physical and mental scars are still there, I'm somewhat better than a lot of people in my situation could be..." Izuku said, putting an end to a more compressed tale of his past that he shared with those that had come with him to I-Island after they withnessed those black wings that he had to use to save  Melissa Shield's life from having a tragic ending as a bloodstain on the pavement after falling from the top of the biggest tower in the I-Island.

Izuku knew that he wasn't good at this and that he more or less was getting quite reckless there with the whole sharing his story despite his reluctance to do that in the past, but he felt somewhat relieved after sharing his tale and having people to listen to his story. Maybe he always wanted to have someone to listen to his story, but was really afraid of doing it. One way or another, he said his piece and shared his tale with those people who came with him. What came next wasn't up to him, but to those who listened to his tale and how they reacted to what he had told them.

Izuku hoped for the best, but one would never know what would happen unless they were in that situation in the moment.

"..." Everyone was now processing the information that Izuku had shared with him about his situation, and that gave some clarity to the people of class 1-B about why Izuku felt for Shinso's taunts during the sports festival, despite knowing what his quirk could do. It was understandable for Izuku not to handle that well to be called things like a guinea pig or lab rat after being heavily experimented upon for two years.

"If there are still some doubts about what I told you...Then I have one last thing to prove the veracity of my tale." Izuku said to the group, as he saw how they still had some trouble warping arround what he had told them, and that made him decide to look to the only classmate in his class that could had been the one that could had blown the lid on his secret a long time ago if he had allowed himself to be in contact with him on the past.

"Monoma. Remember what I told you the first time we met in class 1-B? We may be on good terms despite what I told you, but I never let you touch me because I knew that it would take you touching me to discover the truth about my quirk, so i want you to touch me, but no use your quirk on me, as i know that you can see if a person has a quirk on them by simply touching them even if you don't use your quirk to copy their quirks." Izuku said.

"Are you sure?" Monoma said. He could say that his relationship with Izuku was far more cordial and friendly than he expected, despite what Izuku said to him the first time they met, but Izuku was quite adamant about having any kind of physical contact with him. So to hear that Izuku was willing to let him touch him to corroborate his story caught him by surprise.

"Yes, I am. But do not try to copy anything that is there." Izuku said, and then let Monoma touch his shoulder.

"No way...You have more than one quirk inside your body!" Monoma said after he touched Izuku and was forced to get his hands away from his shoulder. One of the things that his quirk allowed him to do was to see if a person had a quirk, so he could know if he could use his quirk to copy their quirk, and this ability was something that didn't need him to actively use his quirk. He was getting a lot of information about the amount of quirks that Izuku had inside of him, to the point that he had stopped holding his shoulder because he was getting a headache from the amount of info that he was getting.

That reaction of Monoma managed to dispel all doubt about his story, and with that came a lot of questions about what quirks he had and how many people knew the truth about him.

Izuku did his best to answer those questions as fast as possible, as they had spent a lot of time already talking about him, and they needed to take that plane back to Japan tomorrow, early in the morning. And after all of that, he said to those people one last thing before he told them that he had nothing more to talk about this issue with them and that they needed to go to bed already.

"Please, keep what I told you right now for yourselves and never share this with anyone at all. I will reveal this info eventually to people that I feel that I'm close with, like those of class 1-B, or with those that I think it is necessary for them to know to avoid future problems for me, like you people of class 1-A that had to see the truth about me during that incident." That was Izuku's closing statement to his story, which had contained multiple revelations that had shattered a little the views of how things worked in this world when quirks were involved, and made all of them think about what Izuku had told them while they were asleep.

Was this the right way for Izuku to share his secret, and how he said things was the best way for people to get what he wanted to tell them? Who knows, but time will tell if his methods to share his tale with those who had come with him to I-Island were the correct ones...