Chapter 2: First Contact
"IIDA!"
Stain ripped his blade free from Iida's chest with a screech of metal and a frown. With a rapid twist, he drew a machete from his side and lashed out. The blade sang through the air faster than Izuku could track and swept just before his chest, so close Izuku could feel the wind it displaced. Over his shoulder, he heard Todoroki's breath hiss out in pain as another wound was added to his arm. Stain's blade snapped back, and the Hero Killer's tongue swiped out to collect his crimson prize.
The murderer had moved so quickly that it wasn't until after his attack that Iida's body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. The armored boy crashed limply to the ground, the sound harsh to Izuku's ears. Iida's fingers scrabbled weakly at his chest. Izuku only caught a glimpse of the wound as he fell as well, still carried away by Iida's shove. That look had revealed a terrifying amount of blood.
Izuku rolled as he hit the ground. He bounced free of Todoroki's paralyzed arm before he came to a rest on his side. He was facing the center of the alleyway.
Facing Iida.
His friend's eyes jerked wildly, panic and fear evident as his lips quivered silently. He desperately clawed at his shoulder and side, where Izuku knew the clasps that kept his chest plate in place were, but he couldn't seem to find them. Above their prone forms, Stain loomed like a monster cast in shadow. The malevolent shade raised his katana again, gripped it tight, then swung.
Izuku and Todoroki cried out, but the only blood the swing shed was from its own coated length. Red droplets splattered across ground and walls alike, but came nowhere close to the fallen children.
"Perhaps there was a shred of heroism in you somewhere after all." Stain hummed thoughtfully as he gazed down at Iida. "Too little too late, but your sacrifice was a respectable one, if useless. Your life is yours for what time you have left, Ingenium. Die knowing you acted in service of others, at least once."
Iida's eyes had lost much of their focus, and were losing more by the second. Blood streamed from the joints in his armor to form a steadily growing puddle beneath him. The scene was horribly similar to one Izuku had seen… minutes ago? Hours? One he'd desperately, perhaps naively, hoped he wouldn't see again for a long time. His friend's mouth worked silently, and blood began to trail down his cheek to join the pool below.
Stain turned towards Native, dismissive of those he left in his wake. The Pro was still paralyzed, and had landed face down against a wall after Todoroki's rescue. Izuku could barely hear muffled sounds coming from the man, though the desperate fear in them was unmistakable. "This fake is next, before anyone else gets free."
Tears mixed with blood as they trailed down Iida's face.
Horror. Pain. Sorrow. Fear. Anger. Fury. WRATH.
Something within Izuku surged to life. It twisted, it warped, it split, and it ripped outwards from his body in a burst of power. Tendrils of inky blackness shot from his skin. They emerged from his hands, his arms, his torso, even his face, shredding any clothes that got in their way. In mere moments, the world was swallowed by darkness cloaked in radiant emerald light as they lashed out to grasp onto every surface within the alleyway. It was like a spider's web spun from ink, and Izuku was the spider caught within its own creation.
The tendrils went wild. They wrenched Izuku from his position to drag him along the ground until he was met by the assortment of garbage bags they pulled towards him. He burst through, but was then flipped into the air. For a moment, he was left to hang upside down at the center of his dark web, every part of him pulled in a different direction. Occasionally, one side would win out, and Izuku found himself slammed into a wall, another garbage can, or the ground. But Izuku wasn't concerned about his own treatment by the tendrils.
Because, for however much they were doing to him, they were doing far, far worse to Stain.
For every strand the Hero Killer managed to cut away, another took the opportunity to further ensnare the man. Before long, his arms had been pinned to his body and his weapons ripped away, leaving him helpless to resist the whims of his inky captor. Concrete cracked as Stain was swung into a wall by a tendril wrapped around his ankle. Another, one coiled around his arm, wrenched him upwards along the wall. A third and fourth strand ensnared his midsection and wrenched Stain back downward with sudden violence, which ripped a ragged scream from the murderer as he sharply changed direction.
Stain smashed into the ground with such force that blood sprayed from his mouth. Several knives were flung from his body to spin away towards the mouth of the alley, the sound of skittering metal loud in the moment of silence that followed.
Then, more and more tendrils lashed out at the Hero Killer. They wrapped around his body, bound his limbs, strung him up, squeezed. What little breath Stain had left was forced out in a hiss as the inky strands tightened. His eyes went wide and frantic as his mouth wrenched open in a silent scream. His body arched, went completely rigid for just a moment, then he fell slack within the dark cocoon.
However, more tendrils kept coming.
Izuku slammed into another wall before the tendrils returned him violently to the ground. He skidded along, arm raised instinctively to protect his face. Having found he could move again, Izuku clawed at the tendrils sprouting from his face as best he could, given his bare hands also had strands stretching from them, but he could do little to the tendrils.
Then, Izuku saw Iida. The tendrils had seemingly left Izuku's allies alone, thankfully. But Iida was still, even beyond when he'd been paralyzed by Stain's Quirk. Izuku couldn't see him breathing. His eyes were half lidded and still, his mouth slack.
Izuku's anger died an abrupt death as shock overwhelmed him. With it, the inky web around him froze, then frayed and scattered as though it had never been there in the first place. Izuku barely heard the thump of Stain striking the ground as he dragged his battered body towards his friend. He frantically released the clasps on Iida's armor, just as he'd seen the boy do after training, and pulled it away. He found Iida's chest covered in blood, trickling weakly from a grizzly wound in the center of his chest.
Izuku's hands trembled as he reached forward. Frustrated, he bit the inside of his cheek, dragged focus back from blind panic, and checked for Iida's pulse.
It was weak, so weak Izuku could barely feel it, but there nonetheless.
Desperately, Izuku pressed one hand each side of the wound in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. To Izuku's horror, he found that the wound was right by Iida's spine, possibly having struck it.
'Was that why Stain didn't lick his Katana? Because he didn't need to?' A small part of Izuku wondered. He ruthlessly crushed the thought and forced himself to function. Iida needed him. "Todoroki! I need you to call an ambulance here, NOW!"
"I still can't move!" Todoroki called frantically from somewhere, and dread soaked through Izuku.
'No. Nononononono. NO!' Izuku's mind was a juddering mess, thoughts flickering and dying faster than he could latch on to them. 'No, I'm not letting Iida die. I'm not letting another person die in front of me tonight. I refuse. You. WILL. LIVE!'
Something within Izuku resonated, and he desperately grasped at it. An instinct, a feeling foreign yet somehow natural. He followed it.
In a surge, Full Cowling ignited. Along with it, the thrum of energy he'd felt coursing through his body since Kinenkō used his Quirk began to condense. Warmth bled from Izuku's body, pooled in his palms, then flowed into Iida. As Full Cowling flickered out, it left him cold, unutterably exhausted, and with a lingering feeling of emptiness. Even so, he kept his hands in place. He didn't know what had happened. He didn't care so long as whatever it was helped save Iida.
The moment he felt more blood begin to seep between his fingers, his panic redoubled. Iida had already lost copious amounts, surely he couldn't afford to lose more. But the amount of blood continued to increase, until the trickle had returned to a gush. Izuku was pretty sure that was NOT how bleeding out was supposed to work, so he took it as a promising sign. The sound of Todoroki as he dashed over, phone ringing in one hand while the other shot out to check Iida's pulse, was another.
"His pulse isn't anywhere as weak as I expected." Todoroki sounded baffled, then twitched and immediately started yelling their situation to whoever had answered his call.
Moments later, Izuku heard a familiar hiss of air as Gran Torino shot over the alleyway, quickly followed by loud swearing, another blast of air, and the small man slamming down next to them.
"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE- Oh, shit." Torino took in the scene around him. His eyes initially found Stain, then landed on the two bloody children tending to a third, even bloodier, child.
Torino moved quickly. The elderly hero whipped off his cape, ripped it in half, then leaned over. "On three, pull away and I'll get my cape in place to better staunch the bleeding." Torino grunted, then shot a look at Todoroki. "You, you're the Todoroki boy with the ice, right? Good. Can you make a brace of ice gently enough not to move him too much, but tight enough to keep everything in place?"
At Todoroki's mute, possibly shell shocked nod, Torino prepared to move. "Ok. One, two… THREE!"
All three moved in near perfect unison, but even so Izuku caught a glimpse of the wound before the cape covered it. A golden ring glowed around it with a bright, rich light that briefly illuminated the ground around them. In that moment, Izuku could clearly see the swirls of gold in the fresh blood that spilled from Iida's wound.
Relief slammed into him, tinged by the chill of frost as Todoroki froze everything in place. 'I guess Kinenkō's vitality was able to be given to someone else too. That's… that's incredible! Oh god, please, please, please live, Iida.'
Torino and Todoroki both looked down at the sparkling blood in confusion, then at Izuku. Todoroki squinted. Carefully, he cupped a small flame in his hand, then lifted it to better illuminate Izuku.
"...the blood on your face is sparkly too." Todoroki murmured, head tilted to the side, then looked at Izuku's wounded arm. "I don't remember your blood being sparkly, Midoriya." Torino leaned in as well, a more pronounced frown than usual on his face.
"You were out of my sight for twenty minutes at most, brat. What on earth happened?" Torino sounded half way between perplexed and begrudgingly impressed.
"I was helping with an evacuation, and someone used their Quirk on me to help with an injury." Izuku sagged, his exhaustion starting to overwhelm him now that he wasn't actively trying to stave off disaster. "I'll tell you about it later. But I think the… er… sparkly blood is from that. I guess the Quirk let me pass the effects on to Iida instead, which is incredible. I've never heard of anything like that…" Izuku blinked, then refocused. "I think it's helping, or at least he's better off than he was before, but I don't know how much longer it'll last. I don't really know anything about it."
Izuku's eyes drifted, and he took in the scene around him. The alleyway was in shambles, cracks and craters littering both walls and ground, shards of ice scattered among them. More than one pile of garbage was on fire. Native still lay near a wall, vague sounds of confusion drifting from him. Stain was in a crumpled heap a few yards away, unconscious but still a threat for as long as he went unrestrained. When his eyes settled back on Torino, the old hero seemed to be thinking along the same lines, eyes locked on Stain's sprawled form.
"Ok, let's wrap this up. Todoroki, keep an eye on the Iida boy. Midoriya, go check on Native, then come help me search Stain if you can." Torino turned once he got an acknowledgement from both of them. He patted at his belt for a moment as he walked towards Stain before he stopped with a curse. "I don't suppose any of you had cuffs or something to tie him up with?"
Todoroki pointed towards a pile of garbage bags, one miraculously not on fire, close to where Torino stood. "I noticed some rope over there."
Torino followed his gesture, then sighed. He rooted through the bags for a moment before he paused, then pulled out a full, if stained, coil of rope. "Who… who just throws away rope?" The old hero asked, sounding oddly offended at the idea. "It's not frayed or anything. This is a perfectly good rope! Ugh, people these days…"
Izuku opted not to question how Todoroki had been able to spot the rope amidst the chaos. Instead, he hauled himself upright and shuffled towards Native. Carefully, Izuku checked the pro's back for injuries before he rolled the hero away from the wall. Izuku willfully ignored the bloody handprint he left on the hero's shoulder in doing so.
Native immediately gagged, then spat small bits of gravel and dubious alleyway dirt from his mouth. "God, thanks for moving me. If I had to taste alleyway for much longer I'd have hurled." Native gave him a weak grin, though it faded when Izukju's face remained flat and exhausted. The pro's eyes flicked over the cramped battlefield. He winced, in as much as he could while paralyzed, at the sight of Iida. "I'm sorry you all had to go through this. I know you weren't really here for me, but I appreciate you all nonetheless. You're…"
Native squinted up at Izuku, then glanced over at Todoroki and Iida again. "...shit." The man muttered. "You're all from UA's first year class, aren't you? You're on your internships. None of you have a license ."
Too tired to properly respond, Izuku just shook his head and continued to inspect the man for wounds. The stab in his left shoulder was the only injury of significance, though he had a scattering of rips in his costume from what Izuku assumed were a few close calls.
Native seemed to mull the situation over before he continued. "I'm guessing none of you had explicit instructions to use your Quirks in combat, yeah?" Izuku certainly hadn't, and from the way Manual had been acting in the brief time he'd seen him, Izuku doubted Iida had either. Todoroki… Izuku wasn't sure.
Izuku's silence was evidently enough for Native, who sighed. "You're probably going to be raked over the coals for vigilantism, even if you did it to save someone's life. You've gone over how strict Quirk law can be about any kind of unlicensed combative Quirk usage, right? That won't be pretty."
'Oh, yes. Mr. Aizawa was very clear on that front.' Izuku thought resignedly. He couldn't bring himself to feel guilty for his actions, but he could absolutely dread the fallout.
"So," Native's eyes locked with Izuku's. "If anyone asks, I authorized Quirk usage under the Disaster Protection Clearance Protocol. It's a little shaky, given I'm low ranked and don't have a whole lot of authority to throw around, but it's technically within what I'm authorized to do."
Izuku frowned as he tightened the bandage he'd pulled from one of Native's pouches around the man's shoulder. "You'd lie about that for us? You'll probably end up reprimanded at best. If the commission doesn't buy it, you could be stripped of your license."
Native chuckled. "Kid, given that I'd be a lukewarm corpse at the moment if not for you lot, I can deal with some suits getting uppity that I gave you permission to defend yourself. They might still be grumpy because three unlicensed first-years managed to track down Stain, but they can't exactly charge you for 'criminal stumbling on an attempted murder'. That said, probably best not to do that too often before you get your license."
Izuku nodded tiredly. "Thank you, Native. I'll try to avoid this kind of situation, but…" The sludge villain flashed through his mind's eye, quickly followed by the villains from the USJ incident. Turning, Izuku threw a glance at Stain. Behind the limp figure, Izuku could see Gran Torino crouched and watching him with a raised eyebrow as he went through Stain's pockets. "I'll admit that my track record isn't very promising in that regard…"
Native smirked. "Yeah, that tends to happen with the good ones."
Izuku stood with effort, then tried for a smile. "Thank you, Native. I'm going to go check on Todoroki and… let him know. Mind if I take these?" Izuku gestured at the remaining bandages in his hand. With a grunt of approval from the paralyzed hero, Izuku shuffled back towards his classmates. He stayed just long enough to see that Iida's condition was as stable as when he'd left, bind Todoroki's arm, and inform him of Native's retroactive authorization. After he received a nod of understanding, Izuku dragged himself towards Stain and Gran Torino. With a grunt, he dropped to his knees and joined the murder weapon scavenger hunt.
"Plotting to circumvent the vigilante laws, huh?" The old man jabbed, not bothering to look up. Izuku didn't see much point in trying to evade, so just shrugged and continued hunting for knives. Torino snorted as he tossed a folding blade onto the frankly absurd pile behind him. "Not like I'm going to judge. I only got my license so I could freely and legally use my Quirk to help out an old friend. It was simpler, back in my day, especially if you were a good enough Vigilante that they couldn't prove you were one. Just don't go looking for trouble too often, it makes people grouchy."
"Er… Sure." Izuku blinked at Torino, caught off guard. "I honestly thought you'd be more mad. About everything."
Torino shot him a look, eyes smoldering. "Oh, I'm pissed you didn't listen to me and stay on the damn train. You could have gotten yourself killed doing what you did, not to mention it would have been hard for me to cover your ass given I was with a bunch of witnesses until a few minutes ago." A sigh hissed from his lips, the harshness easing from his expression. "But you're alive, and I'm guessing more than one person would be very dead if you hadn't shown up. You did the same damn-fool thing Toshinori would have done, so I can't be too surprised."
The two worked in silence for a time, until they finally determined that they couldn't disarm the man much more without literally stripping him. They'd taken his spiked boots, removed the blades from his visible sheathes, and searched just about every inch of him for his stash of hidden weapons. Frankly, Izuku was amazed Stain hadn't been ripped to shreds by his own neurotic blade hoard during the fight.
"You lot really did a number on this guy, huh?" Torino grunted as he looked down at the Hero Killer. "I can spot a few pretty heavy impacts, which I assume was your doing. He'd got a few scorch marks, presumably from the Todoroki brat. But these…" He pulled down the wrappings around the Hero Killer's arms, revealing stripes of angry bruises that criss-crossed the limb. "I'm not rightly sure what to make of these. They're all over him. They from Native?"
Izuku shook his head, and began tugging at his lower lip. He grimaced as he felt dried blood flake off his skin. "I haven't really gotten to think about it, with everything that was going on, but something… weird… was happening during the confrontation with Stain. Something with my Quirk."
Torino cocked an eyebrow at him quizzically.
"There were a few times where I got this shooting pain in my head, and it felt like I had some kind of warning about attacks before they were made. It saved me from getting stabbed once, but that threw me off so badly Stain got me anyway on the second try. At the end, after he… stabbed Iida, something else happened." Izuku sucked in a breath through his teeth as he remembered the feeling. "Some kind of black tendrils shot out of me. They latched onto everything, and were flinging me around, but that was nothing compared to what it did to Stain. They smashed him up, literally squeezed the consciousness out of him, then went back to swinging me around like a kid with a toy. It wasn't until I noticed Iida's condition again that they stopped. They just fell apart after that."
Torino's eyebrows had been steadily climbing through Izuku's description, but had fully shot into his hairline at the end. "Did someone else use their Quirk on you before ya got here?"
Izuku shook his head. "No, just… just Doctor Kinenkō-san, that I know of. But here's the thing. I think it was coming from One for All. They felt different, but at the same time, they were familiar somehow. I don't really know how to describe it. It was kind of like back during the sports festival…" Izuku shot a covert glance at Todoroki, who was thankfully focused on tending to Iida. "When the vestiges appeared."
Torino stared at Izuku for a second before he slumped. "I'll get Toshinori's ass over to my apartment, and we can talk it over once this mess is sorted out. I doubt the big lug has much of an idea, but he's had the power for over 40 years. Maybe he has some insight rattling around in that empty head of his." He muttered, not sounding particularly convinced.
Izuku was… admittedly pretty skeptical as well, but he could hope.
Their conversation was interrupted by a relieved cry from Native as the man sprang to his feet. He looked around, wilting slightly when he found that there wasn't much left he could do. Moments later, Izuku could faintly make out the sound of running footsteps as they approached, and beyond them the distant sound of sirens as they got closer. After a brief exchange of looks, Izuku and Torino stood and dragged Stain towards the mouth of the alleyway.
As they stepped onto the main street, the pack of approaching pros stopped to goggle at them. Frankly, Izuku thought that was a fair reaction. A tiny elderly man and a kid were probably not who they expected to see, much less for them to have a notorious serial killer bound and on the end of a rope leash.
The stunned silence was broken when they exploded into a cacophony of questions, though Torino cut them off almost immediately. "Save that shit for later, we have a critical injury back in the alleyway, through and through with likely spinal damage." Izuku winced as Torino spoke. He wished his suspicions hadn't been confirmed. "Anyone here with anything resembling a healing Quirk?"
A tall man with a long… Neck? Head? With stitches circling it stepped forward. A section of stitching at the front separated, revealing it to be his mouth. "I'm Patchwork. I can perform emergency stitches, but they won't hold for too long."
Torino nodded and urged him into the alleyway. "Go. Everyone else, we keep an eye on-" The old hero's head swung around, eyes wide and alert.
"GET DOWN!" Torino shouted, too late.
In a sickly yellow streak, a Nomu shot down from the sky, massive wings pumping. The creature trailed a streak of blood from an empty eye socket nestled within its exposed brain, but it's functional eye was locked on Izuku. He barely had time to register what was about to happen before taloned feet snatched him up by the ribs and whisked him upwards and away.
While he desperately clawed at the talons holding him, Izuku watched in horror as the heroes grew further away. The feeling redoubled when he saw Stain leap to his feet, one foot extended oddly. 'I knew they were working together!' Izuku thought, panicked. 'I'm just the distraction so that Stain can make a break for-'
Stain plucked something from a shadowed corner with his toes, then flicked it up behind his back to his waiting hands.
'Wait. Was that one of his knives?' Izuku squinted, trying to see. It looked to be the case, as the ropes that had bound Stain fell away. Like lightning, the Hero Killer lunged towards one of the heroes. But rather than go for the kill, the hero killer's tongue swiped out towards his target's cheek.
Izuku was momentarily confused before the Nomu froze, then began to fall. His stomach lurched up into his throat at the sudden descent, and he renewed his attempt to escape the claws that trapped him. 'Wait, did Stain…?'
His unfinished question was interrupted by the answer. Stain sprinted towards him with inhuman speed. The Hero Killer left the heroes in the dust as he dashed after Izuku's captor. With a leap, Stain planted a foot on a balcony, then launched himself into open air.
DANGER
"BOTH THIS SHAM FILLED SOCIETY…" Stain rasped as he slammed a knife through the Nomu's surprisingly resilient wing, then used it to drag himself forward. The Hero Killer shredded the wing as he went, before he finally managed to clamber onto its back.
"AND THE CRIMINALS WHO WIELD THEIR POWER IN THE NAME OF PETTY MISCHIEF…" The chill Stain's words sent through Izuku contrasted with the boiling heat of the blood that rained down on him from above. Briefly, the slick heat made grasping the Nomu's frozen claws harder. However, once he got a proper grip, the paralyzed monster's inability to react let him escape it's clutches with ease. As he slid free, there was another lance of pain through his head. Above him, he caught a glimpse of Stain's knife as it fell a final time, driven into the Nomu's brain.
"Are targets of my PURGE!" Stain's hand snapped out and snagged Izuku from the air, much to his chagrin. Stain yanked Izuku under one arm, then leapt from the Nomu's back.
'... Staying with the Nomu might actually have been safer…' the small part of Izuku's brain that wasn't a chaotic mess of confusion and fear mused. The creature seemed to shrivel as it fell below them, then smashed into the ground with the sharp crack of breaking bones and a sickening splatter of blood. '...Yeah, probably still safer than this.'
Stain landed before the slain horror in a deep crouch, then ripped the knife free of its brain. The sharp motion flung blood and chunks of brain in a gorey arc behind him.
"All… for the sake… of a better society…" Stain growled, voice harsh.
Izuku tried to pull away, but Stain's grip was extremely tight. On one hand, that prevented Izuku from falling into the mess of blood and graymatter splattered across the ground, which was nauseating enough at arms length. On the other hand, he was already covered in it's blood, and he was stuck with Stain. That probably didn't bode well for his prolonged health. Regardless, trying to escape Stain while the man had a knife and a solid grip on Izuku would probably take more than he had to give. At least not without taking the 100% nuclear option and making Stain live up to his name, which he obviously wasn't going to do.
Izuku looked back towards the heroes as he heard their distant shouting, but saw that of the whole group only Gran Torino was even trying to do anything. His mentor was circling around, likely in an attempt to find an angle of approach from which he could disarm Izuku's captor before the Hero Killer could carve him up. Izuku's gaze returned to Stain's knife, which was held loosely in a trembling hand. 'Maybe I can-'
"WHY'RE YOU ALL BUNCHED UP TOGETHER?!" A familiar voice roared from the distance, and Stain's hand tightened on his knife with a spasm.
'Well, there goes that plan…' Izuku grit his teeth. 'Of course he'd show up NOW.'
Izuku watched as Endeavor rounded a corner and shouted over the other heroes. "THE LAST OF THE NOMU SHOULD'VE HEADED YOUR WAY- Wait, is that…?"
"Endeavor…" Stain's voice sounded inhuman in Izuku's ear. A glimpse of movement in Izuku's periphery had him overwhelmed with panic in a second. Stain tossed him away like an afterthought as the murderer spun, and Izuku caught a glimpse of the Hero Killer's mask as it fell away.
From the direction of the heroes, Izuku heard the crackling woosh of flames. "Hero Killer!" Endevor bellowed, voice audibly getting closer even as Torino called for him to stop.
Izuku weakly shoved himself to his feet, back against the wall he'd struck. To his horror, he had front row seats to see Stain's face as the Hero Killer's eyes locked with those of the Flame Hero. Stain's eyes were bloodshot and wide with mania above the scarred crater where his nose had evidently been carved off.
"You Fake."
It was like the world stopped.
Izuku watched the heroes freeze in place, himself feeling a primal urge to just stay still and hope the predator left him alive . His skull felt like it was about to split wide open from the waves of danger rolling off the Hero Killer. It was overwhelming.
"If I don't fix it…" Stain hissed, spittle flying. The Hero Killer stepped forward, uncaring as he stomped down on a ruined wing. Several of the distant heroes took an instinctive step backwards. "If someone isn't stained with blood…" Another step. Endeavor's charge staggered to a halt as he dug in his heels. Across the street, even Torino shuffled nervously.
"If I don't reclaim my hero status…!" Stain continued his slow steps, menace radiating from him like a bonfire. Izuku felt himself start to hyperventilate, and he was behind the man. Endeavor was under the full weight of Stain's glare, which was evidently enough to make the titan of a hero take a few hurried steps backwards.
"COME! JUST TRY TO KILL ME, YOU FAKES!" Stain roared his challenge as he lurched forward. Even wounded and with only a knife in hand, the pro heroes he faced looked ready to break and run at any moment. "THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED TO KILL ME IS ALL MIGHT, A TRUE HERO!"
Stain grew still as his words echoed through the deserted street.
The lancing pain behind Izuku's eyes cut off instantly.
One of the pros collapsed and scrambled a few feet away before they regained themself.
Silence.
"This guy, he…" Endeavor sounded shaken, something Izuku couldn't have imagined before that moment. "He's… out cold.
Izuku leaned hard against the wall behind him. Slowly, he slid down the rough surface, legs unable to hold him up.
On a distant rooftop, a lanky man dressed in loose black clothes absently flicked his fingers. The motion flung free motes of dust, which only moments ago had been a set of binoculars..A gust of wind carried the dust away and tousled his ragged gray hair, which brushed over the severed hand that grasped his face. He'd watched the confrontation with the heroes. He'd watched the little fucker Stain kill the last of his Nomu, denying him the green brat in the proccess. He watched the heroes collectively shit themselves as Stain shuffled a few steps then just stood there. He had so many questions about that hax-ass bullshit.
Nothing had gone his way, and he had no idea why anything had happened the way it did. That just added a whole new dimension to how pissed off all this made him. He wanted to go break something. Within him, Decay howled in agreement, hungry for more destruction.
"Let's head back." Shigaraki growled at Kurogiri.
The shadowy butler swirled to look at him, luminous yellow eyes giving the impression of reserved curiosity. "Did you achieve the results you wanted, Tomura Shigaraki?"
"Idiot. That all depends on tomorrow." Shigaraki huffed.
Darkness. Absolute, impenetrable darkness.
Izuku tried to move, but his body felt numb and unresponsive. He strained to speak, but all that he could do was whimper. He struggled to call upon One for All, but found the power absent.
No. No, that wasn't right. The power wasn't missing, it just wasn't where he expected it. The power was outside of him, surrounding him, smothering-
"... nine …"
The sound was so distant and muffled Izuku barely registered it, mired as he was in panic. When the voice repeated itself, more clearly, his mind finally latched onto it, desperate to grasp at anything in the void.
"Nine! Can you hear me?" The voice finally sounded clear, if not a bit strained.
"...mmMph…!" Izuku had tried to scream, but all he could get out was a grunt.
"I… think that's a yes?" The voice didn't sound entirely convinced, so Izuku repeated his grunt. "Ok, I'll take it. Honestly the fact I can reach out like this at all is amazing enough."
The darkness… thinned, for lack of a better word, and Izuku could vaguely make out a figure beyond. The man looked sickly despite his young age, with pale skin, drawn features, and lank white hair that hung over teal eyes. The man approached him slowly, the darkness clinging to him oddly, and looked as though he was pressing against a great weight.
"I can't do this for long. Nine, something's happening to One for All. I've never seen it absorb something like that before. It's always just stockpiled an imprint, not actually taken... I don't know… what's happening… be… careful…"
As the man spoke, he gradually lost his battle against whatever force he worked against. He slid backwards into the darkness once more, consumed by the void.
Izuku thrashed weakly as the nothingness rushed in around him again, desperate to resist. Try as he might, however, it was inexorable. With a final muffled cry, he was washed away.
With a jolt, Izuku awoke to find himself laying in a hospital bed, the energy of Full Cowling crackling faintly around him. Even just the 1% that shrouded him was a sharp contrast to the permeating exhaustion that weighed him down. He looked around himself, momentarily confused about where he was.
Then, he registered the still form of Todoroki where he lay in a bed across the room, medical monitors unused in the corners. Everything was cast in the flickering green light of One for All, though the dim rays of morning shone through the blinds on the far wall.
The hospital. Right. They'd rode in with Iida in the ambulance, been treated for their injuries, and left to sleep and recover after their ordeal.
'I hope Iida's ok.' Izuku thought. Worry momentarily cut through the unease at what he'd just experienced, but the confusion crashed back in soon after. 'What was that? Was it a dream? It felt like it, but at the same time… that same feeling was back. The vestiges… All Might said he only ever saw them once, but now I've seen them as shadows, felt three distinct presences during the fight, and actually saw a person just now.'
Izuku closed his eyes, then turned his focus inward, trying to feel the power of his Quirk. It felt as it always had, a well of energy vast beyond comprehension. That power had become more and more familiar over time, but it still had a sense of… foreign-ness to it that made it hard to consider his own.
Izuku gradually relaxed his draw on the power until only the barest sliver still coursed through him. It wasn't enough to even classify with a percentage, and certainly too little to glow from his skin. He contemplated the power, felt the way it flowed through his body. He sank himself deeper, and found he could sense the power more clearly. It was made from interwoven motes of energy, a prismatic braid he could trace back to the core-
It felt different. Larger, somehow, despite Izuku having never consciously considered it before. There was a feeling within, almost distilled concepts. A sense of generosity, of anxiety, of coiling anger, of persistence just barely out of reach…
Izuku's focus slipped, and he found himself alone with his thoughts once again. They were not reassuring. '...What on earth is happening to One for All?'
Izuku sat in his bed at Hosu General Hospital. In his hand, he held the loose assortment of glass and electronics that was his phone.
Initially, he'd fished it out of his tattered costume to try and call his mother not long after he'd woken up. Given the state he found it in, he'd opted to set it aside and call her using one of the public phone booths the hospital offered. Once he'd assured her he was alright, he'd very, very carefully explained what had happened the previous night.
All things considered, his mother had actually taken the news better than anticipated. She'd only dropped the phone three or four times that he could hear, and he didn't think she'd fainted for any substantial length of time. He could only hope he'd put her fears at ease enough that she wouldn't be a nervous wreck between now and when he returned home in a few days. Even if he had, he knew he'd be in for quite an ordeal when he returned. He loved her dearly, but his mother worried about him at the best of times, and it always made him feel guilty. The last thing he wanted was to worry her, but so long as he was a hero, it would be an inevitability.
'Just another reason I need to master One for All as quickly as possible.' Izuku had thought on his way back to the room. 'Once I have complete control, once I'm strong enough to really be called All Might's successor, she'll never have to worry about me again.'
On his return, Izuku had found Todoroki awake. The two had talked for a brief while over their hospital breakfasts once the food arrived. Mainly, they tried to come to grips with the events of the previous evening. The fact that their fight with Stain had only lasted a few minutes, despite it having felt like hours during the confrontation, hardly felt real. In the end, the lingering stress, exhaustion, and worry over Iida's wellbeing had brought the conversation to a gradual stop.
Afterwards, Izuku had quickly spiraled into a pit of worry. So much was happening, and so little felt like it was within his control. On one hand, that was a familiar feeling. On the other, that was a feeling he'd hoped he could escape now that he was training to become a hero. But with the first death of his career, his friend being grievously injured right in front of him, and his inherited Quirk behaving strangely, he felt adrift. In a desperate bid to distract himself, Izuku had gently grabbed his phone and set about seeing if anything was recoverable.
The fact that it even turned on was a shock. That it displayed 386 notifications from HeroNet was even more of one. It took rotating the phone several times to get some of the necessary keys in functional sections of the screen, but eventually he was able to unlock it and navigate to the app.
To his pleased surprise, his most recent message was actually from Uraraka. Izuku eagerly tapped on the chat, but what he found within was definitely not what he'd expected.
Conversation: Ochako Uraraka [Uravity]
Uravity: Are you ok Deku? What's going on?
Uravity: I hope everything's ok!
Uravity: Give me a call when you can please! I know you're probably fine, but I can't help but worry, ya'know?
Uravity: **You know
Any confusion Izuku felt was blindsided by the idea that Uraraka wanted to call him. Call him . A girl. Uraraka. Call .
"Midoriya, are you ok?" Todoroki asked, clearly alarmed. "I'm pretty sure people aren't supposed to turn red like that. Do you need me to call a doctor?"
"I'M FINE!" Izuku did not squeak, and if Todoroki said otherwise, he was lying.
Deku: Im k srry to wrry yu phn damagd will call when I can
It was only after he'd successfully brute forced a readable text that his confusion returned. 'Why was Uraraka concerned in the first place? I wasn't supposed to be in Hosu, and I doubt Todoroki's the type to update the class on what happened unprompted…'
Izuku backed out of the chat, then scanned further down. He quickly realized he'd also received messages from Kirishima, Yaoyorozu, Asui, and… actually, quite a few of his classmates, along with All Might. All of them were below the second chat in the list, a bloated monster that, going by the timestamp, he'd created during the fight with Stain. '… Wait… Why is that massive thing in my personal conversations? That should be in… oh.'
Izuku tapped into the bloated chat, then broke out into a cold sweat as his newfound fears were confirmed. Apparently, despite his jittering hand, he'd managed to get just about everything right while he sent out his SOS. The one thing he'd done wrong had been accidentally sending it as a group message to his HeroNet contact list, rather than as a proximity message that would have alerted other heroes within a five mile radius as he'd intended.
'No wonder Todoroki was confused at first. If I was calling for help, why would I have sent it to the class? If he hadn't taken the time to check it and realize where it was…' Izuku really didn't want to consider how things might have ended had Todoroki not arrived when he did, or worse, if nobody who'd gotten the message had been close enough to do anything.
Izuku looked up at Todoroki in the bed across from him, who was busy tapping away at his own phone. "I just realized what happened with my message. Thank you for coming to help, Todoroki."
Todoroki glanced up at him, then returned to swiping at his phone. "You saved me at the sports festival. It was the least I could do." He paused, though his eyes never left the screen. "Also, please call me Shoto. The less I have to hear my fathers name, the better."
"I wouldn't go so far as to say I saved you, To-Shoto." Izuku caught himself. It would be odd to adapt, but it made sense, given what he knew of the Endeavor issue. "And even if I did, helping you come to terms with your power is way different than tracking someone down in a massive city, mid disaster, to help them fight off a serial killer."
Shoto looked at him, one eyebrow raised. "I believe, as the recipient of your assistance, it's up to me how valuable I think it was. You saved my hero career. I helped you fight a villain, sure, but you were the primary reason he was taken down regardless. From my perspective, I still owe you."
"I… You're underselling yourself a bit there, but I don't really have a good counter argument to that." Izuku responded after a surprised moment of hesitation as he scratched the back of his head. "Thank you, regardless."
Shoto gave a satisfied hum, then returned to- 'Wait, is he playing Fruit Ninja?' Izuku filed that baffling tidbit away for later, then returned his attention to his phone.
Most of the messages within the group chat he'd accidentally started were a confused jumble of questions, concern, and horror as more news came out of Hosu. Then the class had collectively realized that the only two who hadn't responded in some way were Shoto and Iida, both of whom they'd worked out were likely in Hosu as well. The resultant pandemonium raged for hours, until it gradually tapered off some time during the night.
With a sigh, Izuku once again fought valiantly to type something understandable. It went just about as well as the first time, which meant a half dozen attempts that still mostly consisted of nonsense when he hit send.
Group Chat: Untitled
Deku: Hi tdrki and I rcvring at the hspital Iida in surgry will updat whn i can phn damagd
Chargebolt: Guys is my brain still scrambled or is Midoriya's
Uravity: Deku! Are you ok? Iida's in surgery? What happened?
Creati: There are reports that Nomu were attacking the city. Did you run into one of them?
Deku: Cant txt phn bad Uraraa right
Deku: 1 nmu but not hurt by it
Creati: I'm glad to hear you weren't hurt by one of those monsters. Were there more villains attacking then, or were the injuries from something else? There hasn't been a lot of information released yet.
Shoto: To my understanding, Midoriya found Iida and Native being attacked by Stain and intervened, then sent his location. I saw it and went to assist. We managed to fend off Stain for a few minutes, but he outmaneuvered us. Iida intervened to save us, but was stabbed through the sternum in doing so. Midoriya managed to restrain Stain with a new technique of some kind afterwards, then applied a healing Quirk that had been used on him to stabilize Iida. I don't have much information on that or what happened afterwards, as I was tending to Iida. I'm given to understand Midoriya was kidnapped by a Flying Nomu that escaped Endeavor, which Stain killed after escaping. Stain then faced down the pros, but passed out before another fight began. We were picked up by an ambulance, and are now in recovery waiting for further news on Iida's condition.
Chargebolt: Guess my brain is still fried weird I thought that wore off a while ago
Uravity: YOU WHAT?
Uravity: OH MY GOD IIDA
Creati: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
Uravity: He's going to be ok, right?
Red Riot: Midori-bro! You're alive! What happened?
Katsuki Bakugo: THIS IS BULLSHIT I'M STUCK WITH THE DENIM DICTATOR WHILE YOU WERE FIGHTING FUCKING STAIN?
Red Riot: WAIT WHT
Red Riot: WHAT
Chargebolt: Wait are other people seeing the same thing
Chargebolt: Oh shit
Chargebolt: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED
Eraserhead: All three of your internship mentors are getting blacklisted.
Tsukuyomi: What a mad banquet of darkness.
Izuku felt a headache coming on as notifications continued to pour in, suddenly thankful that his phone's speaker was apparently broken. "Er… Shoto? I'm not sure we should have told everyone about Stain yet."
Shoto glanced up from his phone, head slightly tilted. "Why not? Native gave us permission, so we shouldn't have any reason to hide our involvement."
"Well, no, there hopefully won't be any legal problems with it." Izuku conceded. "But everyone's freaking out now, especially given Stain's track record for crippling anyone he doesn't outright kill. I…" Izuku deflated slightly. "I don't really know how the situation should have been handled, but it probably would have been a good idea to tell everyone a little more gently?"
"What do you mean?" Shoto asked. "I thought it was best to present reports concisely while focusing on important details."
"While you're right regarding reports, this… isn't really a situation where that's the right approach." Izuku said hesitantly. "It's too impersonal, and that will make everyone more worried. I'm sure they want to know what happened, but they're probably more concerned about us than the specific breakdown of events."
Shoto's eyes narrowed as he rubbed his chin contemplatively. "That's always been how I talked with my family, when I got the chance. I… I knew how they talked with each other was different, but I never really understood why . It always seemed easier for them." Shoto blinked, then wilted slightly. "I wonder if that's why my mother looked sad when I was telling her about what I've been doing."
That… Izuku wasn't sure what to say to that. He'd known that Shoto's upbringing had been, frankly, horrifying. It pained him to no end that he couldn't tell anyone in a position to do anything about it without breaking Shoto's trust. "Well, now that you know… maybe it'll get easier? Talking to them, that is."
Shoto hummed inscrutably, then stood and walked over to Izuku's bed, uninjured arm stretched forward to offer his phone. "Your messages are even more indecipherable than before. Just let me know when you're done."
Izuku stared at the phone for a moment before he took it gingerly. "Thank you. I'll try to calm things down and get it back to you as quickly as I can."
Shoto nodded, then walked over to look out the room's window. Izuku watched his new friend, worry only growing. Just how isolated had the poor guy been?
Shelving the concern for another time when he could hopefully better address it, Izuku turned his attention back to the chat. He quickly reread Shoto's previous message, then began tapping away. The experience of using a functional keyboard after his last few messages was almost blissful.
Shoto: Hi, Izuku here. My phone is basically a pile of scrap at the moment, so I'm borrowing Shoto's. He covered everything fairly accurately, though I think he gave me more credit than I deserve.
Katsuki Bakugo: That was fucking obvious.
Red Riot: Dude, not the time
Uravity: Are you ok Deku? You're not hurt too badly, are you?
Uravity: And Todoroki too?
Shoto: Pretty beat up and needed some stitches, but that's honestly not too different from how I was when I arrived in Hosu. Shoto also needed some stitches in his arm, but managed to keep Stain mostly at range.
Creati: Get some rest and focus on recovery. Please keep us updated.
Uravity: I'm glad you're both mostly ok. Hopefully Iida will be too! How was he looking when you last saw him?
Shoto: It wasn't good, but better than he was immediately after the injury. I'm not going to say much until I know more.
Froppy: Because of the healing Quirk, right? Where did that come from?
Izuku winced. Leave it to Asui to find the most uncomfortable question, albeit through no fault of her own. He wasn't sure how to approach that situation himself, much less with anyone else. Before he could even try, the door to their room slid open violently to reveal the small form of Gran Torino.
"Look alive, boys. We're going to see your friend!"