Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the wake of Nebulae’s big reveal, 1-A’s dynamics shifted dramatically.

The Deku-squad were all still friends, though they weren’t really the Deku-squad anymore, given the loss of their namesake.

Ojirou, Kouda, Satou, and Shouji stayed much the same, as none of them held intense opinions, though they were all somewhat sceptical.

Hagakure joined the Baku-squad, who were all very vocal about how Nebulae were just faking for attention.

The biggest shift was Nebulae’s new friend group. Momo, Hitoshi, Fumikage, Denki, and Kyouka were the only five students in 1-A that actually supported them as a system, so they pretty much cut contact with the rest of the class.

The rest of the school was really no different, there were few (if any) in each class that supported them. Even less actually owned that fact. Mei and Neito were the only two non-2A students that had actually talked to Nebulae in weeks.

The only really positive thing was that no one had posted to social media or told the news about them, so the system wasn’t overwhelmed with abuse and ridicule online as well.

Lily threw open the door to Mei’s lab, striding in with a sheaf of papers under one arm. “[Mei we need babies.]”

Mei dropped the burnt wreck she was prodding at and ripped off her soldering mask. He swept a hand across one of the workbenches, sending half-finished blueprints cascading to the floor. Grabbing a pencil shoved messily in vir hair, they pulled fresh blueprint paper from a box under the table.

In turn, Lily set her folder down and opened it, picking out a few of the most detailed sketches and handing them off to the eccentric inventor. “[So, we were thinking about tightening the whole thing up, because the bagginess was just there to preserve Izuku’s ‘innocent bean’ thing. It’s actually a liability because grabbing.]”

Mei nodded enthusiastically and started drawing, referring to the sketches in front of him for more decorative elements.

“[And then also darken the green, to a deep emerald, forest-y colour.]” She pulled a few decorative fabric swatches from the folder and dropped them beside the sketches. “[Obviously these are the wrong fabric, but they show the colour we want.]”

Mei glanced at them and smiled approvingly. “[This is already so much better. What else do you have for me?]”

“[Well, at the moment the reinforcements around our legs is stupidly chunky and unwieldy, so slim that down. Darken the boots to more of a garnet.]”

Mei paused. “[Why not just make them all black? The red makes it easier to track your legs’ motion.]”

Loki and Emerald both agreed, though Izuku produced a token protest. So Lily nodded in acquiesce, and Mei made a note by the boots of her blueprint-sketch.

“[Now. We want to make a flammable aerosol bomb.]”

Mei’s grin widened manically. “[Oh? Do tell!]”

Lily smirked a little in return. “[Well, Izuku is now aware that the body was born with a fire breathing quirk, so we can use it in battle. We thought that if you can make a flammable aerosol, we can create a wall of the gas and set it on fire as a way to protect civilians, or as an evac route.]”

Mei grabbed four sheets of blueprint paper and started scribbling furiously. Lily surrendered her organised pages of suggestions and ideas to Mei’s oil-stained chaos, giggling as the pink-haired gremlin descended into a mutter storm to rival Izuku’s.

The two traded designs and ideas back and forth for well over two hours, hashing out the details on both the standard, dress, and stealth variants of Nebulae’s hero costume.

They spent a good chunk of that discussing remodels of support items, as well as new ones.

Mei had kept insisting on tracking the body’s vitals, as well as about 17 different trackers (Lily was certain he would sneak in more though).

They had agreed on a high-tech visor though, with an AI connected to it. Mei had lamented that she wasn’t good enough at coding to create an AI, and Lily smugly revealed that Izuku had been working on one since he was 10, and it was just a few minutes of coding and a password or two to connect it to the visor.

Mei had been suitably shocked, and then shoved a USB at Lily and told her to get Izuku to fix it when he could. Lily laughed, but agreed.

Lily knocked on Aizawa’s office door, and opened it slightly at the muffled thump. “[Aizawa-san?]”

“[Come in.]” That was slightly clearer, and Lily pushed open the door to the darkened office with a creak.

“[Uhh, it’s Lily right now. We were just wondering if it was possible to change our hero name? It feels wrong to use Deku, and now we have an actual reason to change it.]”

Aizawa nodded, and pulled a stack of papers from the mess on his desk. “[I thought this might happen. Normally you’d just change how you introduced yourself, but now that you have a provisional license, there’s a bunch of paperwork to fill out in order to get everything changed. I’ve already signed where needed, so you can just submit it once it’s all filled out.]”

Lily accepted the stack with a smile, tucking it into the large folder she had been carrying already.

“[Out of curiosity, and not that I have any expertise on this whatsoever, what is your new hero name?]”

Lily smiled broader this time, a little of Izuku’s famed Sunshine Grin evident. “[The Multiple Hero: Nebula.]”

Though he would deny it to the end of his days, in the dark office, a small yet proud smile stretched across his face, sincere and warm.

Nedzu steepled its paws and observed the chaos mildly.

He had called this staff meeting to discuss Midoriya and his system, and it had very quickly devolved.

Aizawa and Yamada had been very firmly accepting and positive about the system from the get-go, and (with permission) Aizawa had shared some basic facts about each of the alters, and certain things that the staff needed to watch out for.

Thirteen had then asked if Aizawa could explain what a system actually was, and he had obliged. The explanation was simple and succinct, though Thirteen and Ectoplasm each had a few questions about why they formed and how they worked.

The real drama had started when Midnight had scoffed, “You’re not actually serious though, right?”

Thirteen turned to her, puzzled. “What do you mean, Kayama?”

“Well this is ridiculous. Midoriya’s obviously acting out for attention or something.”

Hizashi frowned at her. “Nem, he has a diagnosis. You-”

Nemuri threw her hands up in the air. “Oh, it's true because some doctor said it? That doctor was probably delusional or crazy! I mean, Zashi, are you really trying to tell me that you believe this shit? Like, there’s no way I’m treating some random kid like a god. That’s fucking stupid and entitled as shit!”

Shouta scowled at her. “Nemuri are you part of a system?”

“No of course not!” She spluttered.

“Are you a psychology professional?”

“No? Shou where are you-”

“Then you have absolutely no right or authority to decide whether or not someone’s mental disorder is real or not.”

Nemuri’s mouth dropped open.

Hound Dog raised a paw gruffly. “I have a psychology degree. Systems don’t exist. He’s obviously delusional or hallucinating or has BPD or something.”

Aizawa sighed. “You are entitled to your opinion, but Nebulae do have a professional diagnosis, and you can’t overturn that.”

Hound Dog snuffled angrily, but stayed quiet.

Kan glared at Shouta. “You can’t be serious! Midoriya needs to be put in his place! It’s insane that he thinks we’ll pay any attention to this stupid attention grabber. We need to ignore it.”

“Look.” Shouta said gruffly. “To be frank, I don’t fucking care whether or not you believe if the system is real or not. In reality it doesn’t fucking matter. What matters is that we get Nebulae the support they need, and respect the way they choose to present at any given time.”

Vlad scowled. “No, what we need to do is discipline him for lying. We need to show him that he can’t fool us with his ‘tragic backstory’ or whatever the fuck.”

Nemuri nodded. “I agree with Kan. Even his closest friends don’t believe him. If that isn’t damning then I don’t know what is.”

Snipe spoke up for the first time, leaning back in his seat. “Ya’know, the boy is saying that it was caused by ‘significant childhood trauma and abuse’. He needs to learn that all heroes are traumatised, and he needs to learn to deal with that!”

Hizashi glowered, and Cementoss flinched. Nothing good ever came of that expression.

“Oh? He needs to learn to deal with his trauma? Are you going to say he needs to stop crying and be a ‘real man’ next? Tell me, where was all of this scorn and derision ten days ago at the villain team debrief? Because back then you seemed understandably horrified at your actions, and how horrible his life has been. But now you seem to have thrown all that away because he coped with his trauma in a way you don’t know. I think that you’re scared of him. Both of you. you don’t understand him and that scares you.”

He stood up, dragging his husband up with him. Not that Shouta was complaining; his husband was destroying them and he approved wholeheartedly.

“When you decide to pull your head out of your ass and realise that you’re planning to reject one of your students to the point that it's emotional abuse or damn close, come find us. Until then, stay the fuck away from our family, Kayama Nemuri.” Hizashi spat.

Nemuri reeled back. She had only seen Hizashi this angry once before, when a villain had almost killed Shouta.

That villain was dead in a minute flat.

Everyone thought Shouta was the scary one, but he was always scary, so you built up tolerance. Really, it was Hizashi that would petrify you with fear; freeze you where you stood with the force of his anger.

If you saw an angry Aizawa Shouta, you should run.

If you saw an angry Yamada Hizashi, it was already too late.

Izuku stood by the pond anxiously, waiting for his mentor.

Yagi-san had been on the other side of Japan for the week, promoting and opening his newest charity. After the Battle of Kamino, and his forced retirement, he had taken up charity work to fill time, and feel like he was still helping in some way.

This most recent charity was dedicated to the quirkless, and named Viridescence.

The man had even gone so far as to say it was made in the honour of a quirkless child he had gotten very close to. He had never given a name, but Izuku knew the child was him. It was Viridescence for hell’s sake.

“Izuku my boy!” Izuku startled violently, Loki and Emerald laughing as he pinwheeled to not fall into the water.

A skeletal hand latched onto his arm and yanked, saving him from an impending dunkin’ (donuts). “Goodness Izuku, you need to be more vigilant.”

Izuku laughed awkwardly, inwardly cursing himself for disappointing All Might.

”[Izuku you can’t do anything wrong in his eyes. He’s being affectionate, not demeaning, luv.]”

“Haha yeah I guess. So how was the trip? Did everything go okay?”

Yagi sat down on one of the artfully scattered benches, and Izuku sat next to him automatically.

“My boy, everything went well. The area was amazing, and the people were so supportive of Viridescence.”

“That’s wonderful!” Izuku gushed.

“Yes, well. I actually wanted to talk to you about something.” Izuku cocked his head in confusion. “A number of the staff were discussing you when I got back today, and they were saying some very cruel things. What happened?”

Emerald tried to front, but Izuku pushed him back, wholeheartedly believing that his mentor would support him. He trusted Yagi, after all.

“Oh! Well I have a mental disorder called OSDD-1b, or Otherwise Specified Dissociative Disorder type 1-b. Long story short, I was really traumatised as a kid and that led to me dissociating to the extreme, resulting in the development of alternate states of consciousness within this body or ‘alters’. A lot of people fake-claim us, that is to say the group of us that resides within this body. I don’t regret it, but people keep turning out to be bigots, which makes me sad. But I have Aizawa-Sensei and Yamada-Sensei and Thirteen-Sensei. And I have you, of course!”

Yagi’s smile turned plastic, and though Izuku didn’t notice, Emerald and Loki certainly did.

”Izuku, you need to let me front. Yagi is old, and he won’t understand.”

Once again, Emerald was ignored.

“Of course, young Midoriya. Nedzu also made a comment about you hurting young Bakugou?”

Izuku frowned a little. “That was Loki, one of the alters in my system. I tried to stop her, but they didn’t listen. And I really want to apologise to him, but Emerald won’t let me. They said that Kacchan would probably try and hurt me again.”

Yagi frowned. “Young Midoriya, you need to take responsibility for your actions. Hiding behind these imaginary friends of your’s will get you nowhere.”

“Imaginary friends? What are you talking about?”

The retired pro put a hand on his successor’s shoulder. “This ‘Loki’ and ‘Emerald’ don’t exist, my boy. They are making you do bad things and you need to stop that. They do not control you.”

A single tear rolled down Izuku’s cheek. “I… I thought you would believe me. Why don’t you believe me?”

Izuku put a hand over his mouth to muffle the crying, and turned away from his mentor, shoulders shaking. Yagi tried to put a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder, but he flinched violently at the contact.

The crying subsided, but Izuku didn’t turn back around. Fog enveloped him, and honey trapped his movements. His grip on front loosened, and Loki pressed forward, slipping into co-conscious first. Xeir presence alone relaxed Izuku further, allowing them to gently take over front.

He wiped away the tears still tracing down the body’s cheeks and took some deep breaths, calming the body’s racing heart.

Turning back to face the retired hero, Loki’s expression was flat and cold.

“My boy, is everything okay? You look… angry.”

“I’m not your boy, Yagi Toshinori.” Loki bit out. “I am Loki, and it is my duty to hold the anger of our system. So yes. I am angry.”

Yagi’s frown deepened. “Izuku, I just said you need to do away with these fake personalities and face things yourself.”

Loki’s eyes flashed, but he took a deep breath, and resettled his emotionless mask. “I am not Izuku, as I just stated. OSDD is a mental disorder, and we have a professional diagnosis. As much as Izuku looks up to you, the rest of us are not blind to your faults, Yagi Toshinori.”

Yagi grabbed Loki’s shoulder harshly. “You are delusional, Midoriya. Snap out of it.”

Loki snarled, rearing back and slapping the man clean across the face. Yagi let go immediately, cradling his cheek.

“If you ever try and interact with us outside of class, or one on one, I will be the one you deal with.” Loki spat. “And I have no lost love for you, and no qualms attacking you if needed. Stay the fuck away from us.”

“Oculus, this is Lily. I have an idea on what to do about All For One.”

Chapter Text

Athena tested the weight of the spear, shifting her stance and twisting her grip to spin it once.

“Yes, this will do. Thank you, Momo.”

Momo curtseyed in response. “It is a great honour to create a weapon for a goddess, Lady Athena.”

The goddess in question grinned, and turned to Loki, who smirked at her. Yellow energy crackled over his form, shifting his clothes to armour.

The door pushed open, and Lily entered, dragging Izuku and Quest behind her.

“[Okay. So Izuku and Quest will stay in here with Momo, Fumikage and Dark Shadow, Mei, Hitoshi, and Aizawa. Yamada will probably also show up at some point. Emerald and Vixen are both co-conscious just in case something happens.]”

Aizawa trailed in after her, the meeting room becoming that little bit more cramped.

An owl swooped past his window, and All for One idly watched it’s progress. He wasn’t doing anything of much importance, and an owl appearing in the daylight was far more interesting.

He half wondered if it was someone with a transformation quirk, but his sensory quirks weren’t picking up anything abnormal.

Lily sat back while the deities planned. While it seemed lazy of her, the two of them were well known for their supernatural intelligence and tactical prowess. Indeed. Athena was the goddess of it.

The trio spread out, whispering to each other through the communication devices Momo had produced.

The two-story house was standard and inconspicuous among a hundred others, but was the only one occupied. Radiation didn’t affect you when you were running on quirks and spite, after all.

“[Alohamora!]” The lock clicked, and the door swung open silently. Lily grabbed it, stopping it from hitting the wall.

“Lily, stay outside. Let us know if backup arrives from either side and run interference.” Loki commanded.

The witch grumbled, but acquiesced, sitting on the bench in the front garden with a sigh.

Loki let his magic flow, four copies of himself flickering into existence. They split up, checking each room methodically for traps or enemies.

Loki smirked, knocking on the door of what should be a master bedroom. She studied the painting hung on the wall for barely twenty seconds before the door swung open.

“All For One, sir. What can I help you with?”

The Doctor’s head was bowed in respect, which made Loki chuckle.

“Oh, I’m not All For One. Though you’re certainly going to wish I was.”

The Doctor looked up at Loki with wide eyes. “Who the hell are you? How did you get here?”

“I am Loki Laufeyson, God of Mischief.” He raised his sceptre, and poked The Doctor with it. In quite an anticlimactic manner, The Doctor became temporarily loyal to Loki, and his eyes glazed over with a blue sheen.

Loki spent a few minutes pressing the man for details on All For One’s weaknesses, and then sent him down to find Lily and ask her to restrain him.

He then met up with Athena again, gave her the base information, and together they descended into All For One’s basement residence.

The basement door was… well it was more like the door to a vault safe, made of thick steel and iron with a retinal scan and passcode needed to get it unlocked. The walls around it were thick reinforced concrete, so going through them would be just as hard.

Without speaking, Loki blurred, shifting into an ant. They scurried up the wall and squeezed through into the locking mechanism. Once ir was in, it was simple to crawl around for a minute to find a hole in the other side large enough to fit an ant through.

She popped out of the lock and scurried across the walls to the opposite corner of the room. Shifting back, Loki quickly masked his presence and tapped his earpiece. “I’m in. Do you want me to open the vault door or-”

Athena cut it off by appearing in the corner of the room opposite to them. “I can get in quite fine thank you.”

Loki huffed, but said nothing.

Since Athena hadn’t bothered to hide, All For One quickly became aware of her presence, and smiled beneath his mask. “Oh? How did you get in here, my dear?”

The goddess scowled, not one to take such blatant patronisation lying down. “If you call me ‘my dear’ again, I will cut your dick off and store it in a jar on my mantle.”

Loki’s copies phased through the walls as this was happening, each taking up a separate position around the ancient villain.

“Now, now, that’s not very nice, is it?” All For One tutted. “I am quite a significant bit stronger than you are, little girl.”

“I am a full grown woman, not a little girl.” Athena snapped, quickly losing patience. She could tolerate many things, but entitled men got on her nerves.

“I am two hundred and twenty seven years old, you are a little girl to me.”

“Only two hundred?” Athena retorted. “Sweetheart, I’m two hundred thousand, you don’t scare me.”

All For One recoiled the smallest bit, and Loki pounced. “As much as you are strong for a mortal, we are literal gods, you do not come close to registering as a threat to either of us.” All For One snapped his helmeted head across to stare sightlessly at Loki. “I mean, I suppose we could see how good you are, but that would be a favour to you more than anything. It would be so incredibly dull for us, after all.”

The villain lost control, roaring in anger and whipping a hand out at Loki. A volley of sharpened icicles shot at the god, who simply flickered and vanished, having drawn attention to one of her copies rather than xier solid body.

Right as All For One did that, Athena threw her spear, resulting in a missed target, and All For one gaining a nasty slice on his inner thigh. His leg buckled against his will, and he growled, sending some type of weird black sludge down to envelop his leg, which hardened into some type of odd armoured cast.

Athena recalled the spear, and Loki appraised the quirk reinforcement. “Huh, that’s interesting. It’s cute that you think it will change anything though.”

“Let’s see how cocky you two are without those fancy quirks then!” All For One snarled, throwing his hands towards the two.

Loki and Athena were enveloped by tendrils of black and red, and All For One laughed maniacally. “Once I have you at my mercy, I’m going to take great joy in killing you!”

From the other side of the room, all that Lily could hear was the volume and tone, and the sliver of dull red light coming through the tiny grates at the top of the wall. She froze, mind filling with snapshot memories of the war, friends screaming under the power of their opponent’s crucio.

Her instinct took over, logic failing under the onslaught of fear, grief, and anger.

Amber magic flared around her, and the thick barrier in front of her shrunk and morphed into a flight of brilliant red and gold butterflies.

She stalked into the room, aura almost tangible. “Let them go Voldemort, or I will kill you where you stand, fuck the prophecy.”

All For One’s eyes widened, thrown off by the abrupt intrusion. “How the fuck do you know Voldemort? Harry Potter is 200 years old!”

Lily didn’t hear him, watching as Marlene writhed on the floor, screaming as Voldemort laughed. The red light endured. Her eyes focused, zeroing in on her target. She raised one hand, palm out.

“Avada Kadavra.”

Tsukauchi flinched, covering his eyes as an acidic green light shone from the house Eraserhead had called him about. His stress levels rose significantly when he walked into the front garden, only to find All For One’s doctor, unconscious and bound, propped up against the front wall of the house.

Izuku and Quest shivered a little as Loki, Lily and Athena discorporated and reappeared in their respective inner worlds.

“They’re back?” Mei asked, mostly focused on the blueprint in front of her.

“Yep!” Quest sang victoriously. “The mission was a success, so I should be getting a call any time-” their phone started ringing, as if on cue.

It was quickly joined by a second ringing, coming from Izuku’s phone. They both answered, listened for a moment, and then Quest burst out laughing.

Izuku reached over the table and whacked them. “I’m so sorry Detective, but we know each other already. We’re actually in the same room right now.”

Once Quest stopped laughing, they hung up, and Izuku put his phone on speaker. “Can you hear us okay Detective?”

Tsukauchi’s dry voice filtered through the somewhat tinny speakers.

“Yes, I can hear you just fine Midoriya. Now, umm,” he cleared his throat. “I’m calling to inform you that the villain All For One was found dead. Quest, I would like to offer my sincere condolences on your loss.”

Quest grinned. “Oh, don’t apologise, I want to thank whoever killed him. Did you catch my brother?”

Tsukauchi coughed. “I’m sorry, what?”

“My brother. Shigaraki Tomura. Was he around when this happened?”

The entire room froze. Izuku dropped his head to the table with a very defeated sounding thunk.

In his office halfway across the city, Tsukauchi Naomasa very slowly opened a file on his laptop, and typed out a few sentences.

“How- for filing purposes, how exactly are you related to Shigaraki Tomura?”

“Oh, adoption!” Quest responded cheerfully. “Dad and Nana had me, then he and Inko had Izu, then he adopted Tomura. If either of us had actually done what he wanted, Tomura would never have come into the picture. But I have an intense urge to murder him, and Inko threatened him into letting Izuku make his own choices.”

Naomasa was almost afraid to ask, but the information was potentially invaluable. “Who exactly is your father?”

Through his despair, Izuku recognised that Quest shouldn’t be the one to answer that. “All For One. Our dad is All For One.”

The adults all choked in shock. The kids didn’t recognise the name, so they had no reaction.

After a few minutes of processing, Tsukauchi coughed. “Right, well, I’ll let you go, There’s always more paperwork for me to do.”

“Oh, of course. Thanks for letting us know detective!”

“Wait I’m confused, what’s the deal?”

“Dude, his dad adopted Shigaraki!”

“…Oh.”

“Also, ya know, my dad’s a 200 year old super villain.”

“WHAT THE FUCK?”

“I’M SORRY WHAT NOW?”

Chapter Text

Quest collapsed onto their couch, entirely drained.

They had been around people for the whole day, almost 15 hours. They’d barely even had time to eat.

On top of that, the system’s main abuser had just been killed, and the success of that was due to their assistance.

Yes, they were happy, but he was their dad, and even if he wasn’t great, he raised them. They craved his respect and love more than anything, even though they knew it was dangerous.

They just wanted him to be proud.

(In a sick way, they knew he would be proud of them for beating him so easily.)

204 strode into the front room, tapping Quest on the shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“I can take over. I think you need to take a minute to process.”

Quest found it a little unusual, since 204 had never politely asked to front before, but they figured that since All For One was dead, it was probably fine.

Deku laughed as the frisbee hit Denki in the face. Momo had made it for them at his request, and playing with them was so much fun! It was such a pretty day, and it made him really happy to be playing in the sun with friends.

His day was made even better when Oculus rounded the corner, walking towards them.

“Oculus!!!!!!!! Hi! Hi! Hi! It’s Deku! Who’s fronting for you?”

Unusually, Oculus didn’t smile and greet him like normal. Instead, they glared at him.

“I need to speak with Lily or Loki. Go and get one of them.”

Deku frowned. “But I’m out right now. I haven’t been out in aaages.”

“It’s 204.”

Immediately, Loki came into front, and Izuku ushered Deku out of the front room.

“It's Loki. What do you want?”

“You killed him.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, we did.”

The wind picked up a little. “Why did you do that? He’s your father too.”

“Why?” Loki scoffed. “We killed him because if we didn’t, he would’ve killed us.”

204 scowled, wind picking up further. “Not if you did what you were told. He wouldn’t hurt you unless he had to.”

“He literally tried to murder you because you ate his food. If he cared about us, he wouldn’t have done that.” Loki snarled.

“That’s what the world is like!” 204 snapped. “He did that to prepare us for the future!”

Lily pushed into front, the body relaxing immediately. “204…” She swallowed. “Parents are meant to protect their children from that harshness until they’re ready to deal with it, not shove it in their faces until they’re used to the pain.”

204’s eyes glowed, wind whipping around it with enough force to rip branches from trees and hurl them into the sky. Dark Shadow shot out from their human, curling around the flying branches and redirecting to crash harmlessly into UA’s massive walls.

“Just because you’re weak, doesn’t mean it wa-”

Everything stopped.

The wind disappeared, the trees settled, and the two of them paused their screaming match to stare at Aizawa, who’s blazing red eyes were locked on 204.

“I don’t know who you think you are, and frankly I don’t care. But if you are going to have a fight on school grounds, get your shit together and stop putting lives in danger with your damn quirk!”

204 bristled for a moment but deflated, recognising that Aizawa was in power here.

(Well, for the moment, at least…)

“Hey, are you ready to talk?” Lily’s hand twisted subconsciously, and 204 nodded slightly, staring at the lake.

Lily took a seat on the bench beside it, and looked at the water too. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” It was genuinely puzzled, not used to apologies from… well, anyone.

“We didn’t realise.”

“Realise what?”

Lily sighed. “We didn’t realise that even though he hurt you, you still saw him as your dad.”

204 grit its teeth, taking a second to respond. “As much as he may have hurt you, that didn’t happen to us.”

“You don’t remember.” Lily breathed, all the pieces clicking into place.

204 slowly turned its head to stare at Lily. “Excuse me?”

Lily covered her mouth with a hand, empathy overflowing from her heart. “Oh merlin, you don’t remember any of it. I-I don’t think I’m the right person to explain that, maybe ask Athena or Saga?”

204 scowled, but nodded and let Astra take front, who had been waiting patiently to see her partner.

”Saga!” 204 slammed the door open, making Saga flinch.

When they saw who it was, they scowled. “What do you want?”

204 went to snap back, but stopped itself, and sighed. “Lily said something, and suggested I talk to you about it.”

Saga was taken aback. 204 had legitimately never been this polite to any of them.

Ever.

“Uhhh, sure?”

204 stepped further into the room, instinctively checking for cameras.

“Lily apparently thinks that father hurt us.”

“Yeah, obviously? You’re a trauma holder, you should know this.”

204 froze. “I’m a what?”

“A trauma holder? You know, you were created to hold traumatic memories that the body couldn’t handle? Probably more shit that All For One did to us.”

204 was silent for a long time. “I… I think I need to talk to Athena about that.”

“What? Why?”

“Because apparently I’m missing memories.”

Saga’s mouth dropped open.

“Holy shit…”

Izuku stood by the whiteboard with a marker in his hand, staring uncomfortably out the window.

After a few minutes of introductions (mostly to his mum), Nedzu called out to him.

“Midoriya-kun, you can start whenever you’re ready.”

Izuku took a deep breath and pulled that cap off his marker.

“Okay, the family tree is very chaotic, and I only know all of it because Oculus explained it to me. But here we go, I guess. This is chronological by the way.”

He started by drawing ‘???’ in the top right corner, and then writing ‘Shimura Nana AKA Starlight’ to the left of them. He drew a few lines underneath to connect the two in such a way that signified their marriage.

“Okay, so Nana and her husband got married.”

Underneath the two, he wrote ‘Shimura Kotaro’ and his wife ‘Shimura Nao’

“The two of them had a son, Kotaro, who grew up to marry Nao.”

On the other side of the board, Izuku wrote ‘Yagi Toshinori AKA All Might’, and drew an arrow from Nana to him.

“Nana met Yagi-san and decided to make him her successor, training him and eventually passing on One For All.”

Izuku proceeded to put an asterisk next to Nana’s husband, and added ‘Shigaraki Hisashi AKA All For One’ to the centre top of the whiteboard.

“All For One then killed Nana’s husband and kidnapped her, in the process causing Yagi-san to believe that he murdered her as well.”

Yagi’s mouth dropped open in shock.

Izuku noticed the reaction and winced. “Oh sorry, yeah she was alive for a little longer than you thought. But anywho!”

He wrote ‘Oculus System’ in between All For One and Nana’s names, as well as ‘Shimura Tenko’ and ‘Shimura Hana’ under Kotaro and Nao.

“Hisashi brainwashed Nana into loving him, and together they had the Oculus System, our half-sibling. Kotaro and Nao had their two kids a few years later.”

He added the final two names to the board; ‘Midoriya Inko’ between Hisashi and Yagi, and ‘Nebulae System’ under Inko and Hisashi.

“Hisashi kept Nana around for a few years to get Oculus through their toddler years, but eventually killed her too. He then married my mother Inko and they had us. So now everyone is on the board.”

He took a break to let that sink in for everyone, and got himself some water.

“Now here’s where it gets a little chaotic. My mother realises she married a super villain and divorces him, scaring him into leaving me alone. Then he spends a couple of years traumatising Oculus in an effort to get them to be his successor, which fails. Then he forces a disintegration quirk onto Tenko, who kills his whole family at seven years old. All For One then takes him in, changing his name to Shigaraki Tomura, which we all know him by. Oculus gets in contact with us, I meet Yagi-san, who decides to make me his successor, and he and my mum end up falling in love.”

He capped his marker and smiled brightly at the room of dazed adults. Nedzu was the most composed, but Izuku could tell that even it was confused.

A click echoed through the room as Tsukauchi turned off his phone. “I am so glad I recorded that, I wouldn’t have remembered any of it.”

Izuku stifled a giggle with his fist. “Uh-huh. Do any of you have questions?”

They all shook their heads, too shocked to really respond verbally.

“Coolio! Let us know if you think of any, we should be okay to answer most things!”

Chapter Text

“Midoriya, Nedzu wants to speak to you,” Midnight purred.

Izuku looked up from his worksheet, and frowned lightly. “Huh. Do you know why?”

Midnight frowned. “I mean, he said it has to do with your dad, if that makes sense at all.”

“Kind of?” Izuku frowned. “But the only reason I can think of is if either he’s not as dead as he should be, or if something happened with-” He paled.

Midnight leaned forward, excited by the dramatic reaction.

“Oh no.” Loki sparked green, sprinting out of her classroom, clothes and papers flying around in his wake.

The door slammed open, Loki bursting in, still faintly outlined in green. “204!”

204 was indeed in the office, though it was sitting politely on one of the plush couches.

Nedzu was sitting at his desk, ears flat against its head. It was trying to appear composed, but his body language was giving everything away.

“Right on time, Loki.”

Loki paused. “How did you-”

204 smiled unsettlingly, “Oh, it’s fairly obvious. Given the number of messes you switched in to fix, we know the signs by now.”

Loki raised an eyebrow, but nodded. “You’re being surprisingly civil.”

204’s expression soured almost imperceptibly. “Yes well, there’s been some… updates.”

“Do tell…” Loki murmured, taking an uneasy seat on the other couch.

“Well, I had a rather long conversation with Athena, and then had to process a large amount of trauma and reorient my worldview. I’m sure you know why.”

Loki nodded.

“Would you like to walk and talk?”

Another nod.

The pair took a few minutes to extricate themselves from Nedzu’s clutch, and then began to stroll vaguely towards the lake.

“So, what happened?” Loki asked quietly.

204 sighed, tension draining from its shoulders. “A lot. But before I start…” It took a halting breath, steeling itself. “I wanted to apologise. To all of you. It’s clear now that I was hurting you, and although I thought I was helping, I was actually doing the opposite. If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you all, please tell me.”

Loki swallowed, jutting her chin out. “Well, thank you, I suppose. I suppose I might be able to forgive you.” He scowled. “Well, except for that time you stole my sketchbook.”

204 half-heartedly flipped kit off, but dropped the arm to curl around its waist comfortingly.

“I… I thought he was helping us. He said he was helping. And sure, I got stronger, but…” it trailed off, voice dropping to barely a whisper. “I realised that’s why I was created. Because it broke all the others.”

Loki's jaw clenched, remembering all the flashbacks and panic attacks and nightmares. “Yes.”

“I-” 204 exhaled shakily. “I don’t know what to do now.”

Loki didn’t respond, unsure what to do next. He was an avenger for god's sake! The touchy-feely stuff wasn’t his job!

Thankfully, Lily was in the front room as well. She’d refused to front, but she was there for support. 

“Do… Can you explain?” Loki asked hesitantly.

That one question was all it took. The dam was broken, and words came flooding out of 204 like a tsunami.

“I don’t know how to fix anything! My entire world is a lie and I don’t know how the fuck I'm meant to live with that. All I've really done is hurt people, and I thought that was a good thing! And it feels like there are so many expectations, and so many things that I broke that I need to fix, and so many things that I need to learn or unlearn or change, and everything has to be done now!”

Loki nodded slowly, remembering xeir own struggle to unlearn ingrained biases and thought patterns.

“And the others should hate me!” 204 snarled. “They should hate me and tell me to die and I would deserve it! I hurt them all so much, but they just smile at me and say that I'm forgiven. That’s ridiculous! Why would they forgive me? I don’t forgive me!”

That made everything snap into place.

Loki bent to pick a flower from the side of the path, and twirled it between their fingers. “I understand that.”

It was a simple phrase, only three words, but it still made 204 freeze.

“What?”

Loki nodded. “I understand that. The confusion. The thoughts that say you deserve to be hated and excluded and ignored. That you deserve absolutely nothing but pain and hurt. Not understanding why people are being kind after you hurt them for so long.”

“H-How?”

Loki looked up from the flower, making eye contact.

“Because I get them too.”

“I wasn’t always an avenger, 204. I used to be a persecutor.”

204’s mouth parted a fraction, but Loki continued on.

“When I was formed, I thought that the best way to keep us safe was to push everyone away. Emotions are dangerous. They leave a weak point. So, I thought I could get rid of them. Get the system to close off to keep us safe. Eventually, Astra asked to speak to me, and we talked about some things. I realised that a; what I was trying to do would never work, and b; I was causing more instability, which in turn caused Izuku to be more emotional.”

Loki looked down at the path.

“It took me a long time to work through everything, and even longer to try and combat my instincts. And I still struggle with it, I still get those thoughts telling me to cut everyone off. But I have a place at the table now, and the others listen to my contributions as much as anyone else’s. Because as much as it’s hard to believe sometimes, you were formed for a reason, and your insight is valuable.”

Slowly, he held out the flower. “I’m not going to pity you, and I’m not going to sugarcoat things, but I think that accepting a hand up is the first step of the way. And someone showed me this kindness, so I’m passing it on.”

204 was silent for a long time.

“I think…” it hesitated, before reaching out to take the flower gently. “If it’ll get them to listen to me, then I guess it’s worth a try.” It grinned, showing far too many teeth. “And I can’t let someone be better than me, can I?”

Loki grinned right back, and the two continued their walk in companionable silence.

By the time they got back to the dorms, it was late afternoon, and the light had already started to leave.

204 stopped outside the door, but Loki grabbed it by the wrist and dragged it in.

Most of Nebulae’s friend group were sitting together, bar Mei, who was in his dorm, and Hitoshi, who was napping on top of the fridge.

Loki pulled 204 over to them, throwing a mischievous smirk at it.

“Oculus is staying for dinner!”

204 glared half-heartedly, but was quickly absorbed into a conversation about the pros and cons of different fighting styles and weapons.

Denki, who was sitting on its left, shocked it a little for debating his most recent point on why rubber shoes sucked, and they drew cold air from outside, shoving it at spark in retaliation.

Almost immediately, 204 stiffened, eyes darting around anxiously. Loki sighed, and elbowed it lightly in the side. “Dead people can’t get pissed at you for quirk use, dumbass. And they're your quirks anyway, no one gives a shit.”

204’s eyes widened, and after a moment it caught Loki in the sternum with a heavy open palm strike.

Loki coughed out a ball of fire reflexively, and 204 grabbed it with its quirk, manipulating it into a phoenix. It also increased the oxygen content of the air around Loki as a vague apology.

While the god was recovering, 204 entertained the rest of the group by manipulating the flames into various shapes, animals and words.

The evening was spent peacefully, and though some of the class gave Oculus weird stares, they didn’t interrupt.

omake 

“He fucking what?!” 204 barked, grabbing the stress ball off Athena’s desk and squeezing it so hard it broke, orbeez cascading to the floor.

Athena tactfully ignored the mess, simply nodding. “Yes. I suspect you lost those memories since you needed to idolise him to survive.”

“That bitch had better be glad he’s already dead, I’d rip him limb from limb otherwise. No one is ever going to do that shit to us again.”

Athena smiled. “In that case, there are some things you need to be aware of. First, Bakugou Katsuki…”

 also have a diagram of the family tree hehe

Chapter Text

After dinnertime, Lily roped the whole group, 204 included, into baking cookies.
Mei was snuck in, and Hitoshi yanked off the fridge, much to their chagrin.

It was completely alien to 204 that people would make food for pleasure. Admittedly, 204 had rather skewed opinions on the concept of doing anything for pleasure, but still.

It had been… chaotic, but not in a bad way. There were about seven conversations happening at any one time, and Mei caused no less than three minor explosions that 204 extinguished with its quirks.

It was oddly exhilarating to use its quirks for such minor things. They had perfectly good fire extinguishers and blankets on hand, but it was much quicker to just snuff it out with a quirk. And it's not like anyone here would complain or report it, anyway.

“No, Hitoshi. We can’t put vodka in the cookies. I am aware that Oculus could theoretically get us some, but Aizawa would kill us and I like living, thanks.”

Hitoshi pouted overdramatically, well aware that Aizawa would indeed skin them alive if they made vodka cookies. They might be able to get off the hook by giving him a couple, but the risk really wasn’t worth it.

Denki reached for one of the cookies barely a minute after they came out of the oven. Kyouka tried to stop him, but he was determined. This caused a rather intense and quirk filled game of keep away to erupt in the spacious kitchen, until 204 eventually sighed, and withdrew a small plastic packet of sand from one of its pockets.

It emptied the pile of sand onto the table and focused, pulling air to swirl the particles into a whirling spiral around Denki.

Spark immediately stopped moving, disoriented due to loss of sight. 204 grinned a little, but pulled the sand away, funnelling it neatly back into the clear plastic snap lock.

“Wait until they’re cooled, tongue burns are incredibly painful.”

“How would you know?” Denki retorted.

204 raised an eyebrow. “We tried to breathe fire as a kid.”

Most of the group winced, and Denki begrudgingly sat back in their seat. Tokoyami, however, cocked their head curiously.

“Yes Jirou?” 204 asked.

It was a little unnerving, since it wasn’t looking at them, but Kyouka swallowed and persevered.

“You said we…”

204 tensed visibly, but paused, seemed to listen to something (probably Astra telling it to calm tf down), and forcibly relaxed again.

“Yes. I did say we, I’m part of a system.”

Kyouka gave a thumbs up, and went back to scrolling social media.

The eight of them all sat around the table, munching on the now cooled cookies.

“Hey Oculus?”

204 startled, and looked at Hitoshi. “Yeah?”

“You seem pretty engaged with that cookie. Did you think we were really that bad at cooking?”

Giggles ensued, but 204 didn’t join, staring at the cookie a little sadly.

“It’s not that I thought that they would be bad, I just didn’t know what to expect.”

“Choc chip cookies are iconic! Everyone knows how they taste!” Denki said, to wide agreement.

204 smiled uneasily, and Lily winced a little.

“Hey, let's play Go Fish!” Kyouka, like the angel they were, also noticed, and distracted Denki with the prospect of chaos.

While Go Fish may seem like a relatively safe thing to play, when you add in 1-A’s reflexive quirk use and competitiveness, it becomes rather… disastrous.

In the end, they managed to not damage anything too major, but they did lose three plates and a chair to Dark Shadow.

Still worth it.

By the time they had finished playing and chatting and packing everything up, it was well and truly dark, not to mention freezing cold. As scary as 204 was, Lily refused to let it go home in those conditions, so it borrowed a spare futon and camped in Momo’s room (it spent most of the night under her bed, but she didn’t need to know that).

The next morning, Astra made pancakes for the entire class, with Jay chilling in co-front with her.

They debated leaving before anyone woke up, but decided against it, instead sneaking into their sysling’s dorm room and curling up to read and drink tea as morning dawned.

Izuku grinned at them when he awoke, and gave them free reign of his dorm while he was at class.

In all honesty, it was one of the most relaxed days Oculus had gotten in a long time, and they decided to surprise Nebulae by taking them out for ice-cream. They deserved it after the last few days.

Deku and Quest walked calmly through UA’s giant gardens on a sunny Saturday afternoon, eating their ice-creams and just enjoying each other’s company.

Most of the student body were off campus since it was such a nice day, so they were mostly alone.

Once both ice creams were finished, Quest paused for a moment to wipe Deku’s face and hands, as he was rather covered in his choice of chocolate ice cream.

They had to take a break once again when Deku started to dissociate, eventually switching back with Izuku.

The two of them were just passing the school buildings, when someone sprinted out of the main doors, slamming straight into Quest.

There was an almost invisible flash of light as the two collided, and Quest felt a shiver run across their whole body. Athena took front immediately, recognising the shiver as a quirk effect.

The person, Akari, stumbled back, eyes wide.

“What did you do?” Athena growled.

“I- I’m so sorry!”

“I don’t care. Tell me your quirk.”

They swallowed heavily. “Um, it’s called haywire. It makes other people’s quirks activate to the max. It generally takes about a minute to activate.”

Athena cursed internally. “And how long does it last?”

“Uhh, only about five minutes? But the effects won’t disappear after that time.”

Athena breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s fine then. We’re good at directing and containing the quirks when we lose control of them. It was part of the training.”

Izuku’s brows furrowed. “Even Split?”

Athena looked at him. “Fuck. You need to get out of here.”

Right as she said that, a gold haze emanated from her eyes and mouth, and she formed next to the body she was previously. She was tall and intimidating, bright blue eyes a stark contrast to her dark skin and jet black hair. Akari’s eyes widened, and Athena scowled as more gold light came from the body, more figures appearing.

Just when Akari had relaxed, thinking it was all over, the light shot out once more, this time connecting to Izuku, who hadn’t quite managed to get far enough away. More figures appeared, and a final flash of bright gold light signalled the end of the quirk’s activation.

By the time Quest and Izuku had blinked all the dark spots from their vision, they were alone on the path.

“Well, fuck.”

Chapter Text

Izuku sprinted back to the dorms, hoping that some of the others had gone there. When he arrived, he found Tokoyami blushing a little, and Emerald smirking and chatting with Vixen.

“Oh thank goodness!” Izuku was almost crying with relief. He’d found some of the missing alters.

The trio looked up, and Emerald grinned widely.

“Izuku! Your friend Fumikage is just so nice!”

Dark Shadow flew out from wherever they were hiding and curled around Emerald, nuzzling contentedly into their hair.

Izuku groaned, and Vixen smothered a quiet chuckle.

“Fumikage I’m really sorry about them, they’re really flirty with everyone when they get like this. Just ignore it if you can.”

Tokoyami nodded. “Of course, Izuku. Vixen and Emerald have filled me in on what happened, is there anything I can do to help?”

“Me too!! I want to help find system friends too!” Dark Shadow exclaimed, still draped across Emerald like a sentient blanket.

Izuku’s smile was only a little wobbly, and he pulled a notebook from his bright yellow backpack. He sunk into a plush green armchair and flicked open the book to a fresh page.

“Okay, so we need to track everyone down, right?” The group nodded. “Then the first thing we need to do is figure out who’s missing. Vixen, can you list everyone in Occulus that you know of, and anyone that you suspect exists?”

Vixen swallowed, but nodded. “Myself, Quest, Astra, 204, Saga, Jewel, Jay, Green Bean, Athena and Sir are alters I know exist. 204 and Saga have mentioned All For One as well, so we may have him as well, though I’m not entirely sure. You’d have to find them or Athena to know for sure.”

Izuku copied down the list of names dutifully, putting an asterisk next to ‘All For One’.

Once that was done, he turned to Emerald. “I know as host there are definitely alters that I don’t know about, so I need you to list everyone you know of.”

Emerald bristled, immediately on guard. “I can’t do that! There’s a reason you don’t know about them!”

Izuku flinched, but didn’t look away. “Emerald if everyone is running around somewhere, I need to know who I’m looking for. If I don’t know they exist and then don’t notice them doing something near me it's gonna make everything a lot harder.” Emerald crossed their arms, and leaned back. Izuku sighed, dragging a hand down his face. Vixen stared between the two, and interrupted quietly.

“Emerald, I respect that you don’t want Izuku to know because you’re meant to be protecting him. I suspect that he’d stay in the dark if given the choice, to be honest. But you don’t get that choice, it’s been made for you. And arguing about it won’t change that.”

The two stared at each other for a moment, before Emerald sighed.

“Fucking fine. You know about me, Lily, Deku, Mikumo, and Loki.” Izuku nodded, writing dutifully. “Then there’s Ember, Kat, Auntie, All Might, and Gatekeep.” Izuku’s eyes widened, but after a moment he startled and started writing again.

“Okay, Moving on from the fact that I was only aware of like, half the system, can you give me physical descriptions of the people I don’t know about please?”

Emerald nodded jerkily. “Ember is a phoenix, primarily red and gold, and about the size of Nedzu, excluding wingspan. Kat is-”

When they had first realised what happened, Quest and Izuku had decided to split up. While Izuku had left for the dorms, Quest had begun exploring the forested area a few minutes’ walk from where they were.

After ten minutes of searching, Quest discovered a tiny clearing amongst the dense trees. Thick shafts of sunlight illuminated the four people within.

Astra and Lily were curled up on a blanket next to a tree, as Deku and Green Bean chased each other in circles, laughing uproariously every time one of them fell over.

“Oh thank Kami!”

Almost in unison, four heads swivelled to stare at Quest. They all relaxed when they realised who it was, and the two green haired kids ran up to them excitedly, chattering over each other.

“Woah, woah, slow down! I can’t hear you when you interrupt each other!”

The two stopped, looked at each other, and immediately started giggling loudly.

Quest smiled, bending down to ruffle hair and give hugs and head pats. They reached into their pocket, pulling out two miniature bubble wands. The two littles gasped, snatching one each and tumbling over each other in an effort to go play with them.

Astra giggled fondly, gesturing for Quest to come over.

“Hey you two, doing alright?”

Lily smiled and nodded, still slightly tense. “Yeah. Astra saw the kiddos running into the forest and dragged me along. How- what happened?”

Quest sighed, sliding down to sit against a tree, uncaring of the dirt. “We got hit with a quirk by accident, and Split ended up getting out of control and everyone got sleeved.” The two women shared a horrified glance. “Yeah it’s… not ideal. We’re currently trying to track everyone down for damage control.”

Right as they said that, their phone buzzed with a text from Izuku, letting them know who he found.

“Oh Kami. Izuku found Emerald and Vixen, and sent a list of every missing alter and their appearance.”

The trio chatted a little longer, before collecting the two happily playing boys and making their way back to the 2A dorms.

On the other side of UA’s campus, Athena and Gatekeep watched from the umpire platform as Sir and Kat stood, glaring at each other. Sparks were literally flying as Kats fought tooth and nail to keep his quirk under control in the face of Sir’s relentless onslaught of insults and inflammation.

The challenge pitted his pride against… well his pride.

As much as it was odd for Athena to admit, Sir was actually a rather good fit for Kat. The pressure and challenge forced him to improve, and he practically lived off spite.

It was funny, she supposed, how well the two sibling systems’ tormentors fit together.

Not All For One though, never him. She refused to believe that man was capable of being helpful.

Auntie sat in the audience, content to watch Kat get beaten into improvement. On some rational level she knew that seeing her son thrown into walls and across the entire arena should be distressing, but she felt nothing. Whether that was because Kat was clearly enjoying himself or because she was grateful for the break, she didn’t particularly care. For once in her life, Auntie could actually relax, knowing that her Kat was being wrangled by someone just as competent as her.

“Are you running away Brat? Do you need a break?” Sir’s reedy, taunting voice rang across the sand, and Kat clenched a fist.

“I’m not fucking running, get the fuck back here and fucking fight me.” He stood up, masking a wince. He definitely had at least one broken rib, probably from catching the corner of a wall a few rounds ago. He thought he’d heard a crack.
Sir strolled back into the ring, looming over Kat’s 13 year old frame.

“Well then, lets see how well you can fight when injured. And don’t think I’ll go easy on you,” the man warned, shifting into a fighting stance.

Kat launched forward as soon as the man was in position, eyes shut tight as he let off a flashbang from his left hand, sand flying right into his opponent’s eyes as they were being shut.

Sir stumbled back, and Kat wasted no time, dashing around to stand behind the man, palms crackling just enough to leave sound ringing in Sir’s ears as he dashed away again.

The plan worked almost too well, and eventually a thoroughly disoriented Sir walked right out of the ring.

Kat whooped, having achieved victory for the first time that day, and Auntie clapped along with him.

Saga screamed, dropping to the floor and clutching at the wound in its side, blood seeping through to pool into the grass beneath them.

204’s eyes were clenched shut from its own struggle, trying vainly to shift the mountain of granite All For One had trapped it under. When Saga screamed, its eyes shot open, sparking with dark fury when they realised what was happening.

All For One stood a foot away from Saga, staring disdainfully. “You could have been so… Good, Saga. But you decided to let yourself be overtaken by idiotic mortal things such as pain and fear. Purge them from yourself, and you will rise above and be the best you can become. I know you can do this.”

Silently, 204 let its rage flow through its quirk, stone parting like butter beneath its wrath.

Saga’s eyes widened, but not enough that All For One would notice or care. The two of them had been stuck in the training ground for what felt like hours, unable to do anything but struggle.

“You know, I believed that for years,” 204 said, leaning against the wall. “I ignored emotion, honed my logic, became the perfect weapon. But do you know what I learned?” Slowly, All For One spun to face it. “I learned that my emotions can do in five minutes what my logic couldn’t do in 6 years.”

As it was talking, it put up a barrier of solid air, blocking the sounds made as Saga dragged themself into the trees nearby.

“And furthermore, you didn’t actually give a shit whether or not I felt my emotions. It didn’t change how useless you thought I was, how much I failed.”

All For One’s eyes narrowed. “Watch your tone girl. I gave you your power, I can take it away.”

204 laughed, tinged with mania. “Like I fucking care at this point! You could kill me for all I care! I spent so fucking long trying to get you to love me. I thought you did for so long! I thought you fucking cared!!” The mania drained away, and all that was left was a cold, angry, nothingness. “But you don’t. you don’t give two shits about us. And it’s taken a long time, and it will take longer still, but I stopped caring about you a long time ago.”

All For One stared at it, struck speechless.

“You don’t scare me, Shigaraki Hisashi.” Without giving him chance to respond, 204 strode into the copse of trees Saga had escaped to, quirk lifting them smoothly off the ground, drifting after the furious protector.

Chapter Text

Loki scowled, cracking her knuckles loudly. At this time of day, Bakugou was generally in the gym with Sero and Mina, doing quirkless sparring and rescue drills.

Thankfully, since the… Incident had happened on-campus, there was no need for the god to lie its way into the school to get at Bakugou.

The first few gyms were completely empty, thought the sixth was apparently a good place for clandestine meetups. Loki left there in a hurry, wincing to herself as he noticed the cameras scattered amongst the rafters in the large space. The Rat definitely knew.

“This school has too many damn gyms” Loki muttered to themselves as he checked the next one.

“Dammit Pinky!” Bakugou’s voice rang out from behind the door, and Loki grinned ferally, eyes darting up to the single open window.

“That should be perfect.”

The god blurred gold, form writhing and twisting into a sparrow. The bird was innocuous enough that no one would think twice, small enough to get through the window, and typically stupid enough to do so.

“Babes look!! There’s a sparrow in the rafters!!!” Mina’s squeal cut through Sero’s haze of focus, and they looked up to confirm that there was, indeed, a small sparrow perched on the rafters of the gym.

Bakugou scowled, not even bothering to look. “Oi dumbass, focus.”

After a minute, and a few hundred pictures of the tiny bird, Bakugou managed to wrangle the other two back into training. Sero however, had lost all focus, and so was banished to the solo training area.

The gym doors slammed open, and Monoma strolled in with Kendou.

“See, they aren’t even brave enough to use their quirks outside of class!”

Bakugou snarled, launching himself at the other blonde. Before he could do anything much, Loki dived at him, clawed feet slicing through skin with little effort. The explosive blonde reacted instinctively, palm crackling as he ignited it, and Loki’s much smaller form was rocketed backwards.

Self preservation kicked in just in time, and the god flashed with a dull gold light returning to base form and skidding to a stop only a metre from the wall.

Sero and Mina gasped, and even Bakugou tensed. Kendou tried to get into a fighting stance, but Neito stopped her.

“She’s not a threat, don’t worry.”

Loki grinned, teeth on full display. “not a threat? Neito you wound me.”

Monoma smiled, eyes glinting with humour “well you’re not a threat to us! I don’t give a shit what happens to the Pomeranian, he’s a dick.” He glanced at the other two teens. ”And the other two are better, but they’re still fake-claimers. So I’m not going to cry for them either.”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “You might not, but I suspect Kendou isn’t exactly prepared, so you two should probably leave.”

Neito nodded quickly, dragging his friend out of the gym and shutting the door with a thunk.

Loki turned to the remaining teens. “Well, lets get on with this shall we?”

“Who the hell are you?!” Underneath the bluster, Katsuki was worried. Some random asshole had just appeared in UA like it was nothing, and Monoma seemed to know him.

Or maybe her?

“If you haven’t figure out who I am, I am Loki. I am an avenger from the Nebulae System, and you all, quite bluntly, are on my shit list.”

Katsuki flinched, stepping back.

“Oh, so you do remember me! Wonderful!”

Just as Loki was about to continue, the doors slammed open again, but this time it was Athena that stalked in.

Loki rolled its eyes. “You never let me have any fun.”

Athena sighed, and grabbed their wrist. “Come on, we have to get you back to the 2A dorm. It’s our meeting point.”

Whilst that was happening, Izuku was dealing with a particularly interesting phone call.

“Uhh, hello?”

“Heyo, is this Midoriya Izuku?” The voice was vaguely familiar, but Izuku couldn’t quite place it.

“That’s me! Can I ask who I’m speaking to?”

“This is Hawks!”

Izuku gaped, but pulled himself back. “Oh my goodness its an honour to be speaking to you Hawks-san. What can I do for you?”

Hawks laughed a little, feathers audibly ruffling. “None of that kid, just call me Hawks!”

Izuku mumbled agreement, and Hawks continued. “Now, I have a bird in my office that says it’s part of you”

Izuku frowned, mind clicking through thought thought trains like a child with a TV remote. “Uhhhhhhh…” Izuku’s eyes widened and he gasped “Of course!”

Hawks made an enquiring chirp.

“Did it introduce itself as Ember, by any chance?”

“Full marks kid!” Hawks grinned. “Want me to send it back?”

Emerald nodded, so Izuku agreed. There was faint bird noises for a moment, and then a flash of ruby fire as the phoenix appeared on the couch arm. “Thanks Hawks-san!”

“No problem kid!” The call ended with little fanfare, and Hawks chewed on his pen, considering the fact that this Midoriya kid was a system too. Ember had been pretty helpful in that regard. Maybe he should invite the kid to intern with him.

Yeah… that could work…

Mikumo flinched and floated towards the wall as soon as the figure entered the room, they paused though, when the figure curled up underneath a table and started rocking back and forth. Their breathing was heavy and fast, bordering on hyperventilation.

Mikumo sighed, figuring that there was nothing better to do. They started to hum softly. Hesitantly drifting closer when the person seemed to strain to hear him. The tune was slow and rhythmic, and ever so slowly, the person’s breaths slowed to match it.

The person avoided eye contact, but their hands fidgeted like they wanted to do something.

“{Do you know JSL by any chance?}”

The person brightened considerably. “{I do! I wanted to say thanks. I’m Amajike.}”

“{Mikumo. Do you want me to stay or go?}”

Only then did Amajike seem to process Mikumo’s translucence through their curtain of blue hair. “{Would… would you stay? It’s just that the person I usually go to is away and-}”

Mikumo laughed quietly. “{Of course I’ll stay. Do you really think I would’ve offered if I didn’t want to?}”

Amajike smiled a little. “{I guess not.}”

The two of them sat in companionable silence for another ten minutes as the last dredges of panicked adrenaline ran themselves out of the hero student’s system. They were interrupted rather harshly by the school bell, making both of them flinch.

Amajike got up to leave, before pausing “{Thanks, Mikumo. This… this was nice.}”

Mikumo smiled gently, all too fragile. “{Message Midoriya Izuku if you want to talk again. He can get in contact with me. I think Mirio has our number if you don’t}”

A few things suddenly made sense to Amajike as Mikumo floated through the wall. “He’s part of the system then, I suppose…” they met up with Nejire and Mirio in the cafeteria, thanking them quietly for grabbing their things.

Jewel blended in with the third years, especially the business kids (they ignored the dress code as much as possible). She wove through the crowded bodies with ease, catching snippets of conversation all around her.

“That test was brutal, why is Ectoplasm like this?”

“I just don’t know how to tell her!!”

“Her costume should be more revealing, we deserve it.”

“I swear if I can’t find a-”

Wait what? Jewel zeroed in on that conversation after a moment, tailing the group of boys for a good five minutes before they noticed her.

“Well hey there gorgeous~”

Jewel smiled sweetly, drawing them further in. “Hi! I’m Jewel, business course. Would you be able to answer a few questions for me on what you think of certain hero costumes? It’s for a project.”

The boys looked at each other and grinned. “sure sweetcheeks, what are the costumes?”

Jewel’s façade didn’t even twitch. “Midnight; the Wild, Wild Pussycats; and 13!”

The shortest boy stepped forward. “13’s costume is too bulky, and it’s really easy to grab. She needs to tighten it up a little for her safety.”

Jewel frowned, just a little, “oh, 13’s pronouns are they/them. Didn’t you know that?”

“Oh, sorry.” The boy said, blatantly uncaring.

The boys all spouted roughly the same thing; all of the costumes needed less fabric. One of the boys even mentioned that midnight’s original costume was the ideal.

That made Jewel freeze. “You know why she changed that though, right?”

“Yeah, the stupid costume regulations or whatever.” The boy scoffed.

“Actually, it was because I got stabbed.” Midnight’s voice was icy, and the group of boys froze immediately. “Now, all of you have detention for the next week. If I have it my way either Nedzu or Aizawa will supervise.”

Six faces paled, and the boys ran like ants under a boot.

Midnight turned to Jewel, face softening. “Sorry you got caught up in that, watch out for them in the future, yeah?” Privately, Nemuri was incredibly impressed with how the girl handled herself in the face of discrimination.

“Oh its okay! I approached them, after all! And don’t worry, I will!”

Jewel flounced off around the corner, fake personality in full force.

Jay stood in front of the bathrooms, cursing his gender once again. He reached up to his shoulder, making sure his shirt covered the strap of his binder. Slowly, cursing his dysphoria, he walked into the girl’s bathrooms. He belonged there, he was lying to everyone about being a boy, he was going to have to tell everyone and stop binding and-

“Hey dude, I think you went into the wrong bathroom, this is the ladies.”

Jay flinched, spinning around to see the red-head from Izuku’s class. “N-no I’m in the right one.”

The red-head cocked his head, then his eyes widened. “Oh shit are you trans? I’m so sorry I didn’t realise, you’re so valid! I feel so bad cos I’m trans too and I just should’ve known and-”

Jay startled into a laugh. “No- I- well I mean I am trans, but other way. My pronouns are he/him.”

The boy’s expression went back to confused. “then dude why are you in the girls bathroom? Come on!” he grabbed Jay’s wrist and pulled him out of the girls’ bathroom and into the boys’.

“I- thanks…”

“No problem dude! Us trans bros gotta stick together!”

Chapter Text

Bakugou slammed open the door, eyes locking on Loki. “You’re fucking dead.”

Loki, who was seated on a couch, sandwiching Sir between herself and Athena, simply smiled, brow raising. “Oh? Aren’t you confident, mortal.”

Kat grinned, leaning out from the kitchen. “As much as I’d like to pretend that it’s confidence, its trauma-born anger issues and an inferiority complex.”

Bakugou’s eyes shot to the factive, crimson eyes widening.

“Wh- who- who the fuck are you and why do you look like me?”

Izuku flinched, and Deku curled closer in on Lily, visibly shaking. The caretaker stood, hoisting the young child in her arms. “Em, Vix, we’ll be in the dorm. I’m not letting him anywhere near Deku.”

Vixen nodded, and the pair disappeared up the stairs.

Once they were gone, Kat’s palms crackled louder, smoke curling through the room as he leaned up against the wall. “I’m you, of course. With the way you treated Deku are you that fucking surprised?”

“What are you talking about?” Bakugou’s voice sounded more confused than anything, and Auntie swept down the stairs clipping Kats upside the head as she passed.

“Quirk off Brat, you’re a fucking fire hazard.” She turned to Bakugou and sighed “We’re part of Izuku’s system.”

Bakugou’s eyes widened even further. “Wait, he wasn’t lying?”

Auntie scowled. ”No.”

Bakugou’s back hit the wall as he stared blankly at the various faces of people he didn’t recognise. “You’re all from… Deku?”

Quest shook their head. “No, if you remember me, I’m Occulus. Well, actually I’m Quest, but I’m the host of the Occulus system, and we introduced ourselves as Occulus. So all of us are from either Nebulae or Occulus.”

Just as it was sinking in with Bakugou, the rest of 1-A barged in, having hung back after class at Midnight’s request.

“Who are you and why are you here?” Iida’s hand chops in the air furiously as the rest of the class formed groups and aimed their quirks at various people.

Jewel held her hands up placatingly, eyes widened in ‘innocent surprise’ type 16. “Why are you threatening us?” It was just the right inflection and Jewel gave herself a mental high five for her effort.

Kirishima’s gaze swept over the group, eyes locking on Jay. His quirk dropped out and he broke formation to bound over. “Hey dude! How are you? Also, I don’t recognise you, what are you doing in our dorms?”

Jay scratched their neck awkwardly. “Yeah about that… You know how Izuku’s a system?”

Kirishima frowned. “Bro you believe him?”

“Kinda hard not to,” Jay sighed “considering I’m part of one myself.”

Kirishima’s eyes widened in shock. “Wait actually?”

“Yeah, that’s why we’re here. we’re all alters.”

It took a good while more to explain the whole concept for the fourth time, but eventually the class understood.

“Shit I- I’m so sorry.” Aoyama wraps an arm around his stomach uncomfortably.

“I mean he’s got to admit it sounded pretty ridiculous without proof.” Satou chimes in, protective instincts screaming.

Aoyama looks at the floor. “No, I must apologise, we caused them pain and we need to own up to it, mon amour.”

Satou sighed internally, still confused about what that phrase meant. Every time he asked, Yuuga blushed and changed the topic.

Jewel’s eyebrows raised, and she grinned “Oooooh, interesting!”

The sparkly blonde’s eyes shot to stare at her. “tu parles français?”

Jewel’s eyes gleamed with mischief “Oui~”

Somehow, word got out to the teachers about the shitstorm happening in the 2A dorms, so now half the faculty was crammed into the common room as well.

Midnight had the biggest reaction, eyes darting from alter to alter as she realised how colossally she’d fucked up. She eventually settled uncomfortably on Jewel, who waved her into the kitchen to talk. She was very intentional to never discuss what happened in there, but when the pair came out Midnight was laughing and relaxed, arm thrown around the younger woman.

“Oh my baby!” Inko burst through the doors, handkerchief already in hand.

Emerald stared at her, face blank. “Inko.”

The woman blinked at him, then smiled widely “Well hello there! I don’t quite remember you, could you introduce yourself?”

Emerald snarled, and Vixen put a hand on their shoulder. “Let me handle it. We both know you’d be a liability.”

Emerald cracked their knuckles, but nodded.

Vixen turned back to Inko. “My name is Vixen, this is Emerald. We both use they/them.”

Inko’s smiled turned plastic. “Well… its nice to meet the both of you.”

Vixen raised an eyebrow. “I wish I could say the same.”

“Well I never young lady-”

“I’m not a lady, Inko. I am nonbinary and use they/them, given how many alters in Nebulae are nonbinary I’d have thought you’d be getting that right by now.”

“Nebulae?”

“Yes” Vixen snapped. “Nebulae. You know, your ‘son’?”

“Why did you say it like that?” Inko asked, chin wobbling. “Do you think I’m a bad mother?”

Emerald’s glare didn’t waver. “Yes.”

“No!” Izuku blurted out.

“That’s beside the point.” Vixen cut in. “Given that Izuku only one of the alters that makes up Nebulae, calling them all your son doesn’t exactly make sense.”

Inko froze. “A-alters?”

“Yes.” Vixen smiled viciously. “You know, all the different beings that live in your ‘son’s’ body because of trauma?”

Inko looked uncomfortable, and Emerald grinned, eyes dark.

“W-well of course I know about them, but-”

“And you don’t just treat them all like Izuku? You actually treat them like their own people?”

“Of course!” Inko burst out. “Ever since Aizawa-san called me saying there was a quirk accident I have been worried sick about Izuku and- and the others, of course.” She amended. “I’ve half a mind to pull them all out of UA if this isn’t fixed. Whoever did this should be punished! They hurt my baby and that’s unacceptable!”

Kirishima stared at Inko with wide eyes, then looked at Izuku, who shrugged helplessly.

Inko’s chest heaved from her passioned ranting, and she turned to Izuku, tone now sickly sweet. “Don’t worry baby, mummy’s here and she’ll fix whatever that brat did to you.”

Loki scoffed, and went to respond, but was interrupted by the door slamming open. A tiny whirlwind of a girl flew in, eyes locking on her favourite person.

“LOKI-SAMA!!!!” Eri shouted, jumping at his arms. He caught her with ease, spinning her around with a grin.

“Hello Princess. How have you been?” It’s tone was softer than anyone had every heard, and Kats gaped.

“What the fuck Loki? Since when could you be nice to people?”

“Language Brat.” Auntie snapped.

Eri frowned at her. “No! Don’t be mean to him!”

Auntie raised an eyebrow. “He’ll rub off on you if we aren’t careful, and Aizawa would be very unhappy.”

“No. Being. Mean.” Eri said, pouting. “Bad words aren’t infect-us anyway.”

“infectious, Hon.” Loki corrected softly.

“Eri you- you knew?” Mina sputtered, utterly blindsided by this revelation.

“Yep!” the girl responded cheerfully. “They accidentally let Deku out and we had a playdate!! Lily-san explained everything to me.”

“How do you know Loki then?” Kirishima asked

“Loki-sama is showing me how to be angry!!”

Aizawa glared at the god in response, and Loki sighed. “I’m trying to teach her that anger isn’t inherently bad or dangerous, and giving her time and space to be angry whilst also showing her how to be safe around those feelings. Eventually it should help with her quirk outbursts.”

“Wait you’re the one helping with that?” Mic screeched.

“Yes. Did she mention me?”

“No,” Aizawa responded. “But her control has improved significantly. She hasn’t lost control in months.”

Loki grinned, kissing the top of Eri’s head. “Proud of you, munchkin.” She set the little girl down and waved a hand, vapour condensing into an elephant shaped cloud. It trumpeted, and trotted through the air to bump Eri’s nose with it’s trunk.

“That tickles!!” Eri giggled, patting the misty creature.

Everyone cooed, the adorable girl melting even Bakugou’s frosty heart.

As such, almost everyone flinched when Saga knocked over the umbrella stand.

“Shit, sorry.”

“damn, that’s a cool quirk” Denki muttered.

Saga didn’t respond, hand clutched protectively around their stomach.

“Are you okay?” Momo asked, eyes locked on the wetness around its hand.

Saga followed her eyes, then shrugged dismissively. “Yeah, I just need some cotton pads and a sewing kit.”

“Sewing kit?” Kyouka choked out, face white. “What do you need that for?”

“For the giant hole in my side.” Saga said blankly ”And maybe for my shirt.”

Todoroki’s mouth twitched, but he stayed silent.

Jewel groans. “Who was it this time?”

“Hisashi, as always.” 204 answered, hand out to pull the kit through the air to it. “Lie down, I’ll do it.”

“I can fix myself, thanks.” Saga said with a frown.

204 glanced at them. “Being dead doesn’t make your health infallible. You’re too shaky to sew up anything reliably, let alone a stomach lining.” It plucked the waiting kit out of the air. “Couch. Now.” Saga glared, but moved to the now empty couch. “Yaoyorozu would you mind making a towel? Bloodstains don’t come out of couch fabrics very easily in my experience.”

“Your… experience?” Momo askes hesitantly, passing a large navy blue towel across as requested.

“Mhhmm” 204 hums, threading a needle as Saga pulls off her shirt, exposing the gash across her midriff. “I’ve bled through enough couches to know which materials respond better or worse to blood. You’ve got one of the bad ones. Given that this is a hero school, you may want to fix that.”

“Or get couch covers.” Saga snarked.

“Or that.”

Chapter Text

Inko had latched onto Izuku almost as soon as Saga and 204 had appeared, and was refusing to let him out of her sight.

“Ma I need to go and talk to-”

“Oh none of that now.” Inko reprimanded. “Whatever it is can wait, and anything they need to say to you can be said in front of me.”

Izuku shrugged helplessly at Momo and Kyouka, who had been gesturing for him to come over. Momo smiled sympathetically and Kyouka glared at the woman, nails digging into her arm.

Kirishima, however, didn’t notice the tension and slipped into the seat next to Izuku with an awkward smile. “Deku-bro! dude! Can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Yeah sure.” Izuku responded. “What’s up?”

Kirishima stared at his hands for a moment, picking at a piece of lint on his pants. “I wanted to say sorry. About not believing the system thing. You’ve never lied or mislead me before, so I should have believed you and I didn’t.” He swallowed, and bowed from his seat. “I’m sorry for being a bad friend, please forgive me.”

It came out in a garbled rush, but Izuku understood and placed a hand on Kirishima’s shoulder anyway. “I forgive you.”

Kirishima looked up, shocked. “Really?”

Izuku smiled. “Of course! You understand why it was wrong and you’re trying to do better, why wouldn’t I forgive you?”

“Well I don’t think you have anything to apologise for. Kirishima, was it?” Inko interrupted, smile seeming closer to a grimace.

“Ah, yes. ma, this is my classmate Kirishima. Kirishima, this is my mother.” Izuku says, silently praying that she would get distracted. “He has the hardening quirk that lets him protect other heroes from getting hurt?”

Inko beams, hand dropping from where it had held Izuku’s arm. “Oh that’s just amazing! Your classmates must be so safe with you around Kirishima-kun! Tell me, what’s your favourite subject? Izuku never tells me anything anymore.” Kirishima beamed right back, launching into a story from one of their English classed, even dragging Mina and Denki into the retelling.

Inko was enthralled, and Izuku managed to slip away up to his dorm with a sigh.

Lily looked up from her place on the floor as the door clicked shut, Deku fiddling with an All Might puzzle next to her. Izuku could barely manage to look at the man now, but Izuku refused to take away a child’s joy because of his own issues.

Izuku flopped onto the bed, completely exhausted. “[What’s the chance of ma leaving tonight?]”

“[Almost non-existent, I’m afraid.]” Lily said quietly, leaning back against the bed frame with a sigh. “[Would you like me to distract her with baking or something? Dinner does need to be made at some point soon.]”

Izuku shook his head. “[I heard Kacchan ask Kats to help him with dinner earlier so it’s taken care of already.]”

Deku fit the last piece of the puzzle carefully into place, and stuck a fist into the air victoriously. “[Mum!! Mum I did it!!! I did the puzzle!!]”

Lily grinned, swooping Deku into a tight hug and planting a kiss into his curly hair. “[Sweetheart that’s wonderful, I’m so proud of you!]”

“[Can we go outside now? You promised I could play with Green once I finished my puzzle.]” Deku said, pouting slightly.

“[Yes darling.]” Lily laughed. “[We can go outside now.]”

Deku wriggled out of the hug and started bouncing around the room, grabbing a ball and frisbee and a few other toys.

Lily glanced back at Izuku. “[If I go down and get Kats and Katsuki to stay in the kitchen, can you bring Deku down and out to the lawn? I’ll meet you out there once you’ve gone through.]”

“[Yeah of course, thanks mum.]”

Lily planted a kiss on his curls as well, before sweeping through the door and down the hall.

After a few minutes, Deku had everything he thought he might need, so Izuku helped him fit it all into a bag and swung it over his shoulder.

“Now, this is super important Deku. Do you want to walk down yourself or do you want me to carry you?”

Deku’s face crinkled with focus, and he mumbled for a minute. “Carry me?”

Izuku grinned. “Sure thing!” He grabbed the 8 year old under the armpits and swung him up to rest on his hip, resting his arms around Izuku’s neck. “All good?”

Deku nodded, so Izuku opened the door and away they went, Deku rambling about frisbees the whole time.

When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Izuku peeked around the corner and saw Lily standing at the entrance to the kitchen. He nodded to her, then made a beeline for the front door.

“Midoriya Izuku where have you been?” Inko snapped, standing up from her place on the couch.

Izuku turned around, still holding Deku. “I was up in my room, ma. Deku wanted to play with Green so we’re going to spend some time on the lawn. You’ll be able to see us through the windows if anything goes wrong.”

Out the window, you could indeed see Astra sitting on the grass, and Green Bean showing her what appeared to be a pretty leaf, before running off again to the tree line.

“Can I play too?” Eri said quietly, before she could convince herself not to.

“Yeah!” Deku said, “Of course you can!”

Eri looked at Aizawa, who nodded, then trotted over to Izuku, holding onto the edge of his shirt with one hand.

“Alright then!” Izuku said, setting Deku down. “Shoes go on now.”

Deku and Izuku both grabbed their red high tops, and Eri grabbed her light purple velcro sneakers.

Once all their shoes were on Izuku opened the door, and Deku immediately grabbed Eri’s hand and dragged her out towards the picnic rug. Izuku stifled a laugh at Eri’s baffled expression, but was glad she hadn’t panicked at the unexpected touch.

20 minutes later, Eri had well and truly relaxed into playing and was laughing and chasing Deku in a thrilling game of tag.

“[Do you think she’s relaxed because they look like me, because they’re kids too, or because of Green’s quirk?]” Izuku asked, flopping into Lily’s lap.

Lily laughed, stroking his hair fondly. “[I think it’s probably all of the above.]”

Astra snorted. “[Do you think Green told her about his quirk or no?]”

“[Oh he absolutely forgot it was relevant until Deku mentioned it and reminded him.]” Izuku smirked.

Lily grinned and poked him in the forehead. “[You smirk, but you do exactly the same thing.]”

Izuku gasped, faux offended. “[How dare you, my memory is impeccable!]”

“[It would be if you ate your vegetables.]” Lily snarked back, not missing a beat.

“[MUM!]” Izuku yelled in embarrasment, and the two women devolved into laughter.

“Excuse me?” The icy voice cut through all traces of humour.

Izuku bolted upright, eyes locking onto Inko instinctually.

Lily smiled gently, noting the open door. “[Hey Inko, what can we do for you?]”

Inko ignored her, face contorting in growing anger. “Izuku, did you just call her mum?”

Izuku nodded, completely silent.

“After everything I did for you, everything I sacrificed to protect you, and now you call this random lady something you should only call me?” Inko snarled. “How dare you disrespect me like that. How DARE you ignore how much work I put into giving you the life you wanted.” Her face reddened, and spit started to fly. “After EVERYTHING I DID FOR YOU! EVERYTHING I GAVE UP! I NEVER WANTED YOU TO BE HERE, NEVER WANTED YOU TO BE A HERO! BUT I LET YOU, DIDN’T I? I LET YOU FOLLOW THIS STUPID PIPEDREAM AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?” She sighed, and the anger seemed to drain out of her. “I’m disappointed in you, Izuku. You’re a bad son.”

Izuku recoiled, then glanced at the trio of kids, huddled wide-eyed behind a tree. It hurt him to know he was responsible for making them so scared, but at least he could get them away.

“Em-Em-Ember!”

The phoenix appeared in a plume of bright fire.

“C-could you take Astra and th-th-the kids to the r-roof, I d-don’t want them here for th-this.”

Ember chirped, flapped once to get to Astra, landed on her shoulder, and vanished in a second flame.

There was a third flame a minute later, near the tree that had hidden the kids.

Izuku saw Aizawa-Sensei creep out of the open door to stand on the edge of the lawn out of the corner of his eye, and noticed that Loki, Emerald, Vixen, and Athena were already there, all looking like they’d rip his ma to shreds if given the chance.

Knowing that he had so many people in his corner filled him with warmth, and he stood. He knew that the others would talk in his stead if he asked, but this was… something he had to do himself. To prove that he could.

“I’m n-no-not a ba-bad s-son.” He started, and braced for the inevitable storm.

“Not a bad son? Not a bad son?” Inko scoffed. “Izuku you’re an awful son. You’re reckless and arrogant. You never listen and you get hurt constantly and you never have time for me or tell me how you’re doing or seem to care about how my day was. You refuse to help out around the house or help me when I’m struggling, and you make so many demands. You need so much and you’re ungrateful if you get it and cruel if you don’t.”

Izuku trembled, but his anxiety was slowly being overwhelmed by a feeling he didn’t recognise. It was hot and heavy and made his chest hurt. His mind swirled with the nasty truths he’d never been able to say. Tears welled in his eyes, but he took a breath and tried again.

“You’re a bad pare-parent.”

Inko reeled back, rage marring her face once more. “How DARE you!”

“I need you to listen to me.”

“Oh you need me do you? If I’m such-”

“Ma please-”

“-A bad mother then maybe I should just-”

“JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME TALK!” Izuku screamed, quirk sparking over his arms. “Just- listen to me. Please.”

Inko swallowed, but nodded. Izuku had never so much as raised his voice, and she was suddenly aware of quite how strong he’d become.

“You aren’t nice to me.” Tears dripped down Izuku’s cheeks. “You never have been. You were… softer when I was a kid, and you can be kind when you want to be, but you’re not nice.” He took a shaky breath. “You never scarred me physically, but you knew that others did, and you never did anything to stop them. You were meant to keep me from harm, and you didn’t. You could have and you didn’t.”

The tears dripped faster now, streaming down Izuku’s face as he finally let go.

“I used to lie in bed and dream of what it would be like to have a family like the ones on TV. To not need to clean until my hands burned from the bleach, to not get locked in my room every night, to not need to break out of my house to see my sibling, to not get yelled at for needing fucking medical supplies!”

Behind him, Lily’s face was blank, but her eyes were glowing toxic green and her hair was floating slightly, betraying her anger. She couldn’t understand what was being said, but she could certainly understand the emotions.

“I thought being loved by your parents was a fantasy, ma. I didn’t think it was real until Lily showed up and even then I was half convinced she loved me out of obligation.” Izuku laughed bitterly, dragging a hand across his face. “I only really processed it when I saw everyone meeting back up with their families at the end of first year. I had survived 17 years, countless villain attacks, and an entire fucking war, and I thought parents caring about their kids was a MEDIA MARKETING PLOY!”

Inko blinked silently, then her lip started to wobble. “Izuku, baby I’m-” she sniffed. “I’m so sorry. I never realised you felt like that.” She smiled wetly, and Izuku barely avoided flinching. “I tried my best, but I can see that-”

She was unexpectedly interrupted by a grey cloth looping around her tightly, pinning her arms to her sides.

“Midoriya Inko, you’re under arrest for abuse and neglect of a child. You have the right to remain silent and anything you say can and will be used against you.” Aizawa growled, eyes dark as he shoved her to her knees. Once he was sure she wouldn’t resist, he turned to his student. “I called Tsukauchi a while ago, he should only be a few minutes out.” His face softened slightly. “If you don’t want to be here for that you can go inside. It’s up to you.”

Izuku smiled, leaning back into Lily, who wrapped her arms around him without missing a beat. “Thank you Sensei, but I think I’d like to watch.”’

Izuku explained what was happening to Lily in a soft voice, and the four that had been standing near the door came out to join them.

“She deserves this.” Loki said, deceptively calm.

Vix coughed. “I didn’t want to be the one to say it, but-”

“But she does, yes.” Athena finished.

Emerald looked at Izuku and Lily, and their face melted into a smile more real than any of them had ever seen before. “You’ve been so brave today, but you’re safe now. You can relax.” They took a breath, steeling their resolve. “I’m proud of you, Izuku.”

That was all it took for Izuku to break, turning and sobbing into Lily’s chest. He was surrounded by people he loved and trusted, certain that they would protect him from anything that may threaten him.

Chapter Text

All For One flexed his hands beneath the rising moon, cycling through his quirk bank to find one that fit.

“Hmmm.” He paused on a surveillance quirk. “Yes, perhaps I will.” He activated Rock Form, fashioning himself a dark marble throne in the silent arena. It was impressive in its size, and the glow of a full moon showed off the scorch marks and crumbling walls that remained from Sir’s earlier training of Kat.

He’d hidden himself away in the announcer’s booth, observing in privacy. The boy had a strong quirk and a fascinating mind: All For One was almost tempted to see what it took to break him. It was unfortunate that when this quirk effect finally wore off the child would become inaccessible, but no matter.

“Sir.”

The man snapped to attention, though his eyes trained themselves on his shoes.

“I will be activating a surveillance quirk that takes me out of my body. Knock you fist on the back of my chair should you need my… assistance, should something goes wrong. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Sensei.” Sir gave an awkward half bow, and moved to stand behind the stone seat.

All For One settled himself, and pulled on Spectator. He felt his body slacken as he formed a spectral shadow of himself, invisible and intangible. He willed himself to float up, searching the grounds for the dormitories.

According to Sir, the majority of both systems had been found, and had converged on Izuku’s class dormitory. It was mildly disappointing that he’d become a hero, but far less disappointing that his misplaced worship of that buffoon Yagi.

He arrived at the correct dorm, helpfully labelled with a clear ‘2-A’ plaque next to the front door. He floated through calmly, but immediately had to bite back a grimace.

The floor of the living area was covered in piles of blankets, pillows, and people.

He recognised both of his children amongst them, even in the dim light. How… distasteful.

A frantic knocking sound jolted him from his thoughts, and it took a moment to place it. Sir was hitting the chair. He needed to return.

His plan to observe the situation before deactivating Spectator vanished the moment he caught a glimpse of the bright blonde hair of his nemesis. He snapped back into his physical body with a small recoil and rested an elbow on the arm of his chair, gesturing sharply to throw All Might off his subordinate and into the arena wall.

The hero took the hit with surprising grace for someone so bulky, turning to catch the impact on his shoulder and avoid losing his breath.

All Might kicked off from the wall almost immediately, ducking into a roll and ending up almost at the back of the throne-like seat. The man he’d subdued was doubled over, coughing hard. Perhaps the chokehold had been a bit much?

He threw a punch at his enemy’s seat, marble smashing beneath his fist. He hit All For One as well, but the man just shook it off, sighing as he took in his now-ruined suit.

“How irritating.” He stood, turning to finally face his opponent. “All Might.”

“All For One.” The hero growled in response.

All For One tutted. “Well that’s no way for a hero to act, is it?”

All Might just glared, smile nowhere to be found. “Surrender.”

“Hmmm,” The villain pretended to consider it. “No, I don’t think I will.”

The two stood in a tense standoff, both ready to attack at the drop of a hat.

“Well then-” All For One began, but the PA system cut him off.

“All For One and All Might.” Nedzu began, voice distorted slightly by the speakers. “As principle of UA I am suggesting you agree to a temporary ceasefire whilst on UA grounds, to avoid any significant damages to the school and its students.” His voice took on a slightly more sinister tone. “If you do not agree, please be aware that Athena and Loki are on their way and are both more than capable of subduing you.”

All Might immediately nodded and relaxed his stance. “Of course Nedzu, my apologies for any damages I’ve caused already.”

“Your threats have no hold on me, Nedzu.” All For One spat, activating Mini Map. The circle popped into existence in the corner of his view a second later, and he relaxed minutely, seeing no new enemy markers appear on it.

“Tragic.” Nedzu responded dryly. “I’m simply distraught to discover that, whoever could have predicted something so vastly out of character?”

All For One scowled, but his face smoothed when two blinking red lights appeared on Mini Map.

An owl and a hawk appeared over the wall of seating, swooping down and transforming smoothly back into Athena and Loki's respectively recognisable forms.

Loki immediately forms a few copies of itself, flickering into existence to surround the pair of nemeses. Athena stared at All Might, noting his relaxed posture and slightly guilty expression, then flicked her gaze to the villain. All For One held his body tense but his hands stayed loose and open, poised to activate whatever quirk he decided was optimal.

“All Might has stood down, Loki.” She relayed, voice steely. “Focus on All For One.”

The PA crackled to life once more. “All Might, I’d like to speak with you in my office. A robot will be waiting at the exit nearest to you to direct you.”

“Of course, Nedzu!” All Might boomed. He bowed once each to Loki and Athena, and promptly vanished into a shadowed tunnel.

All For One loosened his stance, but the stiffness in his shoulders remained. “Well, I suppose that’s my cue to leave then. Can’t fight my nemesis if he’s not here, now, can I?”

Loki raised a single eyebrow, though Athena’s face didn’t shift.

There was a beat of silence, then the trio launched into motion.

Loki’s illusions closed ranks, obscuring All For One’s senses and drawing his focus.

Loki himself stayed at long range, commanding their illusion army with practiced grace.

Athena flickered out of sight, flying up into a corner to begin weaving her spell.

For his part, All For One was striking down the illusions with speed, using Air Cannon to dissipate them, Rock Form to impale them, or Rivet Stab to rip them apart.

After a moment, All For One found an opening and shot a beam of light through an illusion, towards their maker.

Loki blurred, shifting into a snake form just fast enough that the beam shot over her.

Athena’s voice echoed in Loki’s head. “It’s time.”

Loki bared his fangs in a morbid grin and shifted again, taking the form of a large eagle, perfectly engineered for its needs.

It took to the sky and All For One fell perfectly in line, sending all manner of attacks upwards to try and fell the god.

He circled higher and higher, until the chill of the air could be felt even through his thick feathers.

Within a breath, Loki dispelled the remaining illusions and plunged sharply into a dive.

The Golden Eagle was one of their favourite forms to take for a distraction, and seeing prey freeze instinctively as 5 kilograms of raptor dropped towards them at 250 kilometres an hour was one of the main reasons.

Not even a war-hardened career villain like All For One could escape the terror, attacks sputtering to a halt as Loki flew like a bullet towards him.

When he was a few seconds from impact, Athena flickered back into view and threw a shimmering transparent net towards their enemy.

By the time All For One noticed it was far too late, and Athena’s spell tangled around him, dragging him to the floor and the depths of sleep.

There was silence for a moment, then Athena pivoted and lashed a fist out at Sir, leaving him an unconscious heap.

Nedzu grinned at Yagi, who sipped his tea to mask his otherwise blatant discomfort.

“Now, I have another guest on the way, who is currently under the effects of an… identity quirk, shall we say. I’m interested to see how you react to each other.”

The resultant silence was interrupted by a knock on the door, swinging open to reveal All Might and his robot guide.

Yagi flinched back in shock, setting off a bloody coughing fit.

All Might rushed over and patted him on the back a few times, helping to expel the fluid.

Seeing his own smile from an outsiders perspective was so deeply disturbing that Yagi could only stare.

“Citizen, are you alright? Nedzu, is Recovery Girl here or should an ambulance be called?”

“Oh this is simply fascinating” Nedzu clapped delightedly. “And Yagi-san has a chronic health condition, he’ll be alright in a few moments.”

All Might nodded once and sank into the empty chair nearest the door. “You said you wished to speak with me?”

Nedzu nodded, but was cut off by a phone ringing.

Yagi winced, and pulled his phone from his pocket. “Ah. It- I need to take this. Young Midoriya never calls this late.”

He pressed answer and stared at the window. “Young Midoriya!... Yes, I’m alright… Yes… No… Pardon?” His face twisted into a grimace. “I’ve told you to stop using that excuse, you need to take accountability for your actions!” A pause. “I only want what’s best for you, you’ll never be a good hero if you can’t be responsible.” An even longer pause. “Are you outside right now? Young Midoriya that’s breaking curfew! I suppose you’ll try to blame that on your imaginary friend as well?” It came out exceedingly bitter, and Nedzu shared an amused glance with All Might.

Well, Nedzu was amused. All Might was closer to dawning horror.

Yagi hung up with a deep sigh, and nodded to Nedzu. “I’m sorry for that, Young Midoriya is… having some trouble right now.”

A bright flash of light shone through the doorframe, and the door swung open with a click and a soft green glow.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing Nedzu?”

Chapter Text

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing Nedzu?”

Loki’s eyes glowed bright, even as he released his hold on the door, stepping fully into the office.

All Might nodded in greeting to the goddess and smiled at Izuku, half hidden behind the other. “I think it best if we kept this meeting as peaceful as possible.”

“I will reflect what I am presented with, All Might.” Loki spat; glare locked on Nedzu. “And currently I’m presented with a social experiment and Nedzu’s lack of morals.”

Nedzu cocked its head, smile unfaltering. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, this is not an experiment.”

“Don’t play games with me Nedzu.”

“I’m not playing any games; I simply wish to know why you’re interrupting my meeting.”

All Might’s fist clenched, but he said nothing. Loki, however, laughed bitterly.

“Oh? Is that what this is, a meeting?”

“Yes, of course-”

“A meeting explicitly set up to test the response your staff member has to discovering how wrong he is.” Loki continued. “A test to see if he can change. Alongside that, this is a test to see how we react when one of us is put in a potentially dangerous situation.”

Yagi’s mouth dropped open at the vicious tone, but Nedzu simple leaned back in his seat.

“I would never betray the trust of those I protect in such a manner, whether staff or student.”

“You’ve been subject to enough experiments to know how it feels, Nedzu. Don’t try this again unless you wish me to return the favour.”

Yagi bristled, jumping in to defend his boss. “Nedzu is a fine hero, you have no right to threaten him in such a manner, boy!”

Loki turned to face the retired hero, noting All Might’s grim eyes with mild interest. “A similar test was put to Nedzu during his time in captivity, and I would…” Her mouth twisted darkly. “Do far worse than threaten if he tried to reenact another.”

Izuku winced and retreated further into the doorway.

Yagi launched from his chair, whole body vibrating with rage. “You dare? You dare threaten a hero in his own office? You will be punished for this- this- this impertinence!”

All Might’s eyes darkened, and he stood too, moving to stand by Loki. “Calm yourself. This will do you no good.”

Yagi lashed out before anyone could blink, far faster than he should be, and jabbed a punch at All Might’s throat. All Might reacted on well-honed instinct, diverting the punch with a single hand and retaliating with an open-handed hit across the cheek. The frail man careened back and collapsed into his chair, cradling his face.

All Might sighed, but made no move to help him. “Heroes do not respond with violence unless there is a violent threat, Yagi Toshinori. If I or Loki were a violent threat we would have attacked already, we are the strongest here by far.”

Yagi looked up, face already reddening. “Loki?”

All Might nodded. “Yes. This is Loki, member of the Nebulae System.”

“Nebulae- what?”

“The Nebulae System.” All Might repeated. “I was told Izuku explained it all to you weeks ago.”

Izuku winced, and Loki snarled softly.

All Might paused, then continued softly, “Though given that most recent phone call, I suspect you did not trust as you should’ve.”

“WH- of course I didn’t believe him!” Yagi spluttered, pain forgotten. “It’s ridiculous! He is him, he cannot be anyone else!”

“And yet he is here,” All Might gestured to the anxious teen. “And so is Loki, supposedly imaginary.”

“And so are you, All Might.” Loki butted in. “Izuku didn’t even know you existed, so you being imaginary doesn’t even make logical sense.”

All Might nodded in acquiesce, then turned fully to Izuku, ignoring the others in the room. “On that note, it’s nice to finally meet you, Izuku.”

The responding smile was wobbly, but real. “It- it’s nice to meet you too All Might.”

All Might smiled, softer that Loki had ever seen, and moved next to the hunched teen. “Deku talks about you a lot; I feel as though I already know you.”

Izuku looked up through his lashes, scrubbing at his cheeks. “R-really? You don’t- you don’t hate me?”

All Might’s brow furrowed. “Why would I hate you?”

Izuku looked at the floor, and his voice was even smaller than before. “W-well- well- Yagi-san…” He trailed off, quiet sobs taking over.

All Might folded the teen into a warm hug as easy as breathing, and shot a truly venomous glare over his shoulder to Yagi and Nedzu. Loki was honestly impressed.

“Izuku,” All Might began softly, “I am the number one hero, so I know what I’m talking about when it comes to heroics, yes?”

Izuku nodded into his chest.

“Then I hope you can trust me when I say that you are a good hero.”

Izuku gasped wetly, tears pouring faster. All Might rubbed his back comfortingly.

“No matter what anyone says, you are a good hero and a better person. You are responsible in your work to the point that you take blame that should fall on others.”

Loki grinned, knowing better than most how correct that was.

“You are unflinchingly kind to everyone you meet, regardless of whether they have earned your ire.” All Might continued. “And I am so so proud of you for everything you have and will continue to achieve.”

Izuku could only cling to the hero and sob, eventually exhausting himself and falling asleep in his hero’s arms.

The next morning found Astra and Lily making pancakes, bacon, and eggs for everyone in the dorms.

The pair wove effortlessly around each other, passing ingredients without needing to be asked.

Just as Lily began pouring the first of the pancakes, the front door of the building clicked open.

Astra gestured to Lily, and the redhead crept into the entry and gestured the visitor – Yamada – into the kitchen, so the cuddle pile in the lounge wasn’t disturbed.

Yamada glanced at the food, then nodded. “Shouta mentioned something happened last night and said you’d probably know, do you?”

Lily smiled, leaning against the kitchen island. “[I do. Loki explained it all earlier this morning. There was an altercation between Nebulae’s All Might alter, and Occulus’ All For One.]”

Hizashi winced. “Well, that’s not good.”

“[It wasn’t.]” Lily sighed. “[Loki and Athena got there before anything major happened, and Nedzu requested All Might come up to his office.]” She glared at the wall, trying valiantly to keep her voice even. “[Yagi was there, and Nedzu wanted to see how the two would respond when presented with the other.]”

“He what?” Hizashi hissed. “That’s-”

“I know.’ Astra cut in quietly. “But Loki showed up a few minutes in and made its displeasure very much known, as I understand it.”

Hizashi looked mollified, and Astra looked at him for a moment. “Someone new showed up overnight. I think you’d like to meet xem. Xey’re on the roof I think.”

“Really?”

“[Oh definitely.]” Lily said, smirking slightly. “[I think xeir life experiences would be useful for you to hear about.]”

Hizashi blinked, confusion only increasing when Astra snorted, covering her face to avoid waking anyone. “This is weird, but okay.”

He slipped back out of the kitchen, skirting the pile of children to get to the staircase.

The scar on his thigh ached as Hizashi climbed the many sets of stairs to the roof and he thought longingly of the scar cream in his apartment but knew in his heart that he’d never get a break long enough to go back and apply it.

When he got to the top of the roof stairs, Hizashi beelined to the scanner inset into the wall. He covered the scanner reflexively as he entered his code, even though the only person who could possibly watch the camera feeds was Nedzu, aka the person that assigned him the code in the fist place.

The scanner beeped, and the door unlocked with a click. Hizashi pushed it open and stepped out onto the roof, immediately zipping up his jacket to ward off the chill wind.

He scanned the roof, eventually landing on a person silhouetted in the morning sunlight. “I was told there was someone up here that I should talk to, is that you?” Hizashi asked, frowning a little when they didn’t respond.

He walked closer. “If you don’t want to talk to me you can say that. I’m happy to leave you in peace if that’s what you want.”

They stayed still and silent, staring at the horizon.

“Look, Astra said you had ‘life experience that would be useful to me’.” Hizashi put air quotes around that last part, mocking tone evident. “But if you’re just gonna ignore me, then I’ll-” The person turned around. “-what the fuck?”

The stranger was tall and lithe, long blonde hair wrapped in a neat crown braid. Their suit vest was crisp, though they’d loosened the tie and undone the top button. The black vest and white shirt contrasted starkly, bringing even more attention to their bright green eyes.

Eyes Hizashi was extremely familiar with.

“You’re me.” Hizashi said, shocked.

“{I would have been.}” Not-Hizashi responded. “{But…}” Their hands stilled, fingers twitching towards their collar. “{Introductions first.}” They shook themselves off. “{I’m Gatekeep, I use xey/xem pronouns and dislike being referred to by traditionally gendered language.}”

Hizashi, still trying to process xeir existence, nodded. “Yeah. Yamada Hizashi, he/him. I don’t really care what I’m called.”

There was a pause.

“Why do you exist?” Hizashi blurted out, immediately regretting his choice of words.

“{Why do you exist?}” Gatekeep countered calmly.

“Because my mother was too scared of abortion to actually get rid of me.” Hizashi said, still mostly running on automatic.

“{Fair enough. If you’re asking after my role, I control who has access to memories and knowledge.}” Gatekeep smirked slightly. “{If you’re asking when and why I formed, it was after you got kidnapped by Electra. Izuku did something of a dive and realised her probable aim was to destroy your hero career permanently. He was so distressed by that thought that I formed.}” Xey pulled the collar of xeir shirt open further, revealing a gruesome patch of scar tissue wrapping around the entire front of xeir throat and neck. “{Post trauma and all.}”

Hizashi felt a swell of nausea, unable to look away from the scarring that so clearly targeted his- no, Gatekeep’s quirk.

The shirt collar was tugged back up after a moment, and Hizashi breathed out.

“I hope this isn’t rude, but I’m glad that didn’t happen to me.”

“{Even if it was, it’s very hard to offend me.}” Gatekeep said. “{It’s odd. I don’t really have emotions, but I feel…}” Xey stared back out at the sunrise. “{A sense of duty, I suppose. To you as my source. To make sure you don’t end up like me}”

“You don’t need to.” Hizashi said immediately, eyes wide.

“{I know, but it’s not really something I get a choice in.}” Gatekeep responded. “{Anyway, add some non-conductive protection to the inside of your directional speaker. If you lose your vocal cords, you’re useless as a hero.}”

“I am not!” Hizashi said, furious.

“{How many weapons can you wield?}” Gatekeep challenged. “{What mid to long range combat options do you have outside of your quirk? How would you communicate with fellow heroes? So much of your hero work is public interactions and outreach, how would you do that without your voice?}”

Hizashi was frozen, horrified with the realisation that he would be useless as a hero without his quirk.

Gatekeep’s face softened slightly. “You can’t do anything about it without knowing that it’s true. Now that you do, let’s talk about it.”

Hizashi nodded fervently and joined xem at the table.

Tokoyami and Izuku squared off in the sparring ring, staring challengingly at each other.

“Midoriya, Blackwhip only.” Aizawa commanded. “Tokoyami, use the vertical space in here as much as the horizontal.”

Both nodded, and Aizawa flared his quirk for a second, signalling the match to start.

The spar was fairly routine for the first few minutes, with Tokoyami and Dark Shadow swooping up and into the air, and Izuku latching onto the rafters with Blackwhip to swing after them.

Izuku eventually managed to throw one shadowy tendril around Tokoyami’s chest and dragged them back to the ground.

This was where things went wrong.

Dark Shadow roared in fury and swooped at Izuku, who powered up and launched at a wall, green lightning crackling around him. The problem came when he hit the wall. Instead of rebounding and launching back as always, he screamed in pain and collapsed, dropping like a ragdoll to hit the floor with a thud.

Immediately curling up in a ball, hands held protectively around his ankles, Izuku didn’t scream a second time, but his sobs were loud and ugly.

Tokoyami rushed over; all pretence forgotten in the face of their concern. “Midoriya, are you okay?”

Izuku didn’t respond, flinching back when Dark Shadow brushed a hand over his back.

Aizawa’s face was carefully blank, but he was just as concerned for his student as Tokoyami clearly was. “Iida, go and get Recovery Girl. Now.”

Iida nodded, engines growling as he sprinted away.

The minutes that followed were tense, Izuku’s cries wrenching the hearts of his classmates and teacher. Even Todoroki, who had so fiercely hated him, felt worried for his health.

When Recovery Girl arrived on Iida’s heels, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

She walked quickly, cane tapping on the concrete floor of the gym.

Tokoyami moved back enough for her to get to Izuku, and she pressed a loud kiss to his cheek.

When the crying didn’t stop, she frowned. “It’s not an acute problem, then. I could give him medication, but not until I know what the problem is.”

2A felt their concern return tenfold, and Aizawa hissed a breath in, trying to remain calm. “He’s unresponsive to us so far. This happened after he activated his quirk and leaped at the wall. He’s been holding his ankles the whole time, so it might be local to them.”

Recovery Girl tapped her cane against one of Izuku’s hands, sending a jolt through it to his ankle.

Izuku screamed, sound echoing around the space and through the open door.

Barely thirty seconds later, there was a flash of heat and fire, and Ember appeared, perched on the rafters. It stared at Izuku, curled and crying of the floor, and flew down, landing next to him with a clack.

“Stupid chick, using the power without me.” Ember chirped angrily.

Tokoyami blinked. “You can talk?”

Ember blinked back. “Not in a way you should understand. I speak in the language of birds, more or less.”

“Well, we’re more bird than most humans, so it kinda makes sense.” Dark Shadow said cheerily. “Why is he stupid for using his quirk?”

“The strength comes with drawbacks.” Ember said, ignoring the confused looks coming from the other humans. “Human minds are not built to handle that pain, so his made me to do it instead.”

“It’s like this every time?” Tokoyami asked, voice shaky.

“Yes. Phoenixes have much higher pain tolerance than humans, so I can deal with it fine, but my Chick…” It gestured to Izuku with its beak, making a mournful noise. “Clearly didn’t listen to the warning I gave him a few days ago about the strength.”

Ember’s talons clacked against the floor as it moved even closer to Izuku.

Recovery Girl moved to block it from coming closer. “I won’t let an animal near one of my patients, it’s unhygienic and dangerous.”

“That animal shares a body with Izuku, I don’t think hygiene is the biggest concern when it knows what’s happening and you don’t.” Dark Shadow spat, looming behind their host. “Am I a hygiene concern to you?”

“Of course not!” Recovery Girl said. “But that’s different, you’re not-” She cut herself off, and the room went quiet.

Izuku had stopped crying.

Ember trilled smugly, preening Izuku’s hair with its beak affectionately.

Dark Shadow snickered, and Tokoyami relaxed alongside the rest of their class.

“What did you do?” Recovery Girl snarled; eyes locked on Ember. “How dare you do something to one of my patients without my permission.”

Ember’s feathers puffed up as it shrieked in warning, short and piercing.

Recovery Girl recoiled, and Ember’s feathers settled.

“What did you do, Ember?” Tokoyami asked quietly, avoiding Recovery Girl’s glare.

“My spit has anaesthetic properties. I spat on my chick’s ankles and the pain went away.” It looked at Tokoyami and chittered questioningly. “I’m taking my chick back to his dorm, do you want to come as well?”

“Yes!” Dark Shadow crowed, curling around Ember happily.

“I’d be happy to as well.” Tokoyami said quietly.

“Excellent. Please let Stormy know where we’re going.”

“Who?” Tokoyami asked, confused.

Ember gestured to Aizawa with its beak. “Stormy.”

“Ah.” Tokoyami tried and failed to hide a smile, turning to their teacher. “Sensei, Ember’s taking Midoriya back to the dorms and has requested me and Dark go along.”

Aizawa nodded tiredly. “Both of you are excused for the rest of the day. Go.”

Ember flapped once, rising into the air just enough to land on Tokoyami’s shoulder. Grab my chick.

Dark Shadow curled on top of Izuku. “Does this work?”

Ember chirped a yes, and Tokoyami felt something faintly warm spread across their body. They blinked, and then they were in Izuku’s dorm room.

Ember had aimed perfectly, Izuku landing softly on his bed and immediately relaxed. His torso wriggled slightly, and the head of a dark green and black snake appeared from under him.

It slithered to the floor and glowed a much brighter green, growing and shifting into a very disgruntled Loki. “What was that?”

Ember flew over to her and preened her hair apologetically.

“There was a bit of a mishap during training.” Tokoyami explained, feeling more than a little out of place. “Midoriya used his superstrength and collapsed from the pain. Ember numbed it for him, but he’s passed out.”

Loki nodded shortly.

“Tell Chaos that the roof has a sunspot on it right now.”

“Ember says there’s a sunspot on the roof of the dorm right now!” Dark Shadow relayed.

Loki smirked at Ember. “Forgiven, I suppose. You’re still a useless feather-ball though.”

“And you would still look better as shoes for my chick.” Ember snarked back, drawing a startled laugh from Tokoyami and a gleeful cackle from Dark Shadow.

Loki looked bemused as she left the room, presumably aiming for the promised basking area.

Ember ran its beak through Tokoyami’s feathers, and they chittered happily, then froze.

“Do you honestly think I care?” Ember said, eying them shrewdly. “Sit on the beanbag or lie down, you deserve a proper preening and a nap.”

Dark Shadow chittered too, louder than Tokoyami and much less self-consciously. They curled up around Tokoyami and they lay together on the rug, Ember gently scratching their backs as it ran a beak through Tokoyami’s feathers.