Created
Status
Ongoing
Watchers
44
Recent readers
0

Story 1: Way of Hisashi the House Husband

Midoriya Hisashi would say that he deserves a vacation. Though, some people also say that parenthood is a full time job.

But old habits die hard and sometimes work just seems to follow behind him. Then again, being a two hundred something crime lord tends to have some baggage.

Internally, he wonders if his son becoming a big hero fan is just karma coming back at him.

Story 2: [TBD]
House Hunting
Location
Philippines
The recently newly wed Midoriya family looked at the house catalogue together. Despite the apartment being comfy, neither thought it was good for raising a family.

Hisashi watched his wife's fingers pointing at the open houses she picked around Musutafu. Not exactly the place he wanted to live. The farther from anything heroic related the better, but his sweet wife disagreed. She believed that they would be safest in the same area as the top hero school in the country and she's not exactly wrong.

"We can afford anywhere with our money." Hisashi said to his wife.

"Yes but we need to plan for the future. Only the best for our future children. Best schools, safe roads, clean parks, and my old friend lives in the area so she and her husband can help us out. Nothing too expensive or gaudy Hisashi. Last thing we want is a house just begging to be robbed by a villain or looking like a tacky eyesore." Inko said as she gotten up to smell the blooming cacti by the window sill her husband tended.

Her husband was definitely a cactus in a way, her own prickly pear.

The doorbell rang. Inko gotten up from the couch and headed to the door.

"That must be the Bakugous."

When she opened the door, Mitsuki jumped and hugged her.

"Koko!"

"Tsuki!"

"I can't believe you're moving in town soon. Don't worry Koko, I'll make sure none of those slimy real estate agents try to scam you and your husband's money. Now come on, I want to see which houses caught your fancy." Mitsuki said as she dragged Inko away while Masaru shook his head with a grin.

"Hisashi." he said as Hisashi looked up from his seat.

"Masaru." Hisashi moved a bit as Masaru placed his hat on the stand. Masaru then took a seat on the couch. The two listened to their wives talking about old times and the best places to raise kids.

Masaru chuckled.

"Sounds like they're suddenly having a slumber party in there."

Hisashi shrugged.

"You tell me. I'm a little late when it comes to the tropes of a teenaged movie sleepover." Masaru just laughed at that as he gotten up and pulled two beer cans from the fridge.

"Man, if only a lot more people got that immortality quirk of yours." Masaru said as he gave a can to Hisashi who happily accepted.

"If only." Hisashi said with a sad smile before the two opened the cans.

"Still, kids. I'm worried if I'll be cut out to be a parent."

"Everyone is. I hoped I'll not repeat the same mistakes when I was protecting my brother." Hisashi said as he took a sip of his beer.

There was a moment of silence.

"You don't talk about your family that much."

"What can I say? I'm a century and some decades old bachelor and my family died in the early quirk years. And you know I don't go toot my horn on my age and experience."

"Must have been some traumatic memories for you."

"Well, my dad died when I was young. My mom raised me and my brother up, before she died. I took up medicine since my brother was born with a rare form of leukemia. The tech at the time was halting the progress of the illness than actually curing it." Hisashi then took some gulps of beer.

"But it'll reach it's due course eventually." Masaru finished.

Hisashi darkly chuckled at that.

"Oh, if only that was the case. No, I managed to found a way to boost his immune system so he could live a healthy life. But, I was so protective of him. That and his bleeding heart when he watched the chaos around him and wanted to save people even before the treatment. I might had went overboard, putting him in a secure vault but I thought it was a good idea at the time. Bombings, attacks, the gunning down of protesters, those were happening a lot at the time, and he was my only family left. But, when I got him cured, he escaped his safe room and ran into the streets, becoming a vigilante then a government sponsored underground hero."

Hisashi then drank the last of his beer.

"No… what ultimately killed him was a raid on a villain lair. I was there when it happened. The place was a couple blocks away from the hospital I was working in. I came with the ambulance to help find the wounded. There I held my brother during his last moments. That time, I remembered it vividly, I was recalling the day I held my baby brother on my hands for the first time." Hisashi didn't realize the rivers of tears were falling from his face as he was waken from the memory by the gentle touch of Inko's hand on his shoulder.

"We'll go ahead Koko. First house on the list." Mitsuki said before she and Masaru left. Hisashi dried his waterfall tears. People assumed his wife was the crier in the family but she's more open with her emotions.

When the two were alone, Inko threw away the empty can.

"So, the old 'leukemia and was coincidentally nearby when he died' story?" Inko said with a grin.

"Best lies are made with the truth after all."

"The best lies are those that are indistinguishable from the truth. The difference is minute but it's there." Inko replied as they heard the Bakugou's car driving away.

"Now come, we still have to go house hunting. And try not to spend too much money on a big house. We did set up a list of things we want."

Hisashi grinned as he gotten up from the couch.

"Of course. I'll be a stay home husband so it has to fit my exact standards."

"Or you could go renovate and expand the place once we bought it."

"True." Hisashi said as the two then exited the apartment and soon drove off house hunting.

What was once thought to be a few days of house hunting turned into a couple weeks.

The two couples rested at the Bakugou household.

"So… what's the current verdict?"

"Three scamming real estate agents, two gang members posing as real estate agents, a foreign pyramid scheme, a haunted house, a house downwind from the Dagobah trash pit, one condemned house for a faulty sewage pipe from an old villain attack, one in a burakumin neighborhood, and one infested with cockroaches and might had been the site of a murder." Mitsuki muttered as she looked at the notepad.

"Well, Koko, at least you'll have a list of people and places to sue and audit in the future. Except the burakumin neighborhood, looked like someone needs to force some heroes to patrol that area some more." Mitsuki muttered as she took a gulp of canned green tea.

"At this rate, I might bulldoze the whole place and build a house from the remains." Hisashi said. Inko rolled her eyes.

"You and your jokes, Hisashi. Besides, we'll have to deal with the paperwork for all of that."

One could politely said that the groan that came out of Hisashi's mouth was the dead coming out of their graves. Hisashi laid deeper on the couch to the point of ruining his immaculate suit.

"I knew I should had used my powers as a media baron to destroy the devil that is paperwork."

Mitsuki burst out laughing.

"Careful, I hear if you destroy one paperwork devil, two more will appear in their place and make you sign more paperwork on destroying paperwork." Mitsuki joked.

"Now that is cruel and unusual punishment." Hisashi said. "Even I wouldn't put my enemies through that."

"Well, not all of the houses we checked were bad. The apartment complex?" Masaru said as he looked at the notepad.

"No backyard for gardening." Hisashi replied.

"The other beach side house?" Mitsuki asked.

"Not much on the space nor does it have enough bathrooms." Inko replied as she pulled out the heated pizza from the microwave.

"How about the condo place we checked two days ago?" Inko asked as she placed the pizza on the table. Hisashi made a face of disgust.

"It's right next door to a hero agency. And we all know how common attacks are by idiots with too much ego."

"Now you're exaggerating on that, though the alarms warning of villain attacks would be annoying as fuck to deal with." Mitsuki said.

"Hmm, we still have a couple of houses to check." Masaru said as he grabbed and took a bite of his pizza. "We can limit the choices at least." Masaru then pulled out the city map and encircled the locations of the houses on it. Everyone gotten up and looked at the map. Masaru preemptively crossed out the houses they already checked.

"Well, it has to be close to schools, parks, clinics…" Inko said, crossing out the remaining houses that she thought to be too far from any of them.

"How about the old house near our place?" Mitsuki suggested as she encircled a spot near the Bakugou's house.

"Old house?" Hisashi asked.

"It's an old place. Boarded up and everything. I think I remember there was a faded for sale sign on the front yard."

"Tsuki! You didn't suggest that weeks ago!" Inko said.

"How was I suppose to know the real estate in town was utter shit?"

"Now, now," Masaru said, trying to be diplomatic and calm. "Let's just check the place out and if the Midoriyas wanted it, we'll try contacting the owners of the place. After lunch." Mitsuki nodded as she ate her pizza.

The two couples soon arrived at the house. Mitsuki whistled at the sight.

"Wow. This place is an utter shit stain."

"How eloquently put." Hisashi muttered. "We would get better luck just demolishing and building a house from the remains."

"Now dear," Inko said as the Bakugous looked for the for sale sign. "I'm sure a good wash, paint, weeding, repairs, and renovations would make this house a home. And who was the one who wanted to learn how to be a carpenter and all that?"

"Hey! Found the sign!" Mitsuki called out.

The four then looked at the old decayed sign as Inko tried to call the number up.

Fortunately, the owners seemed to want to get rid of the house as fast as possible and soon, Hisashi began repairing and renovating the house with the best money can buy.

Inko took some pictures as Hisashi painted the walls of the house. One can see the backyard ready to be redesigned as the glass panels and iron frames of a green house sat waiting next to the bags of sand and rocks for a sand garden.

"Really dear, you don't need to prove how much of a man you are, renovating the whole house by yourself." Inko said as she sat on a chair watching her husband dug down on the backyard.

"If you can do it yourself, the better. Besides, we were planning of adding a basement to the house and we can't really let people know what we put in the basement."

Inko shook her head.

"You and your hobbies dear." Her phone then rang as it got a message. Inko read it before she got up. "Well, seems that I'm needed at work. Do you need anything from the store? Maybe some takeout for dinner?"

"Hmm, how about something from that restaurant that opened recently? I think it was selling some fusion cuisine."

"That does sound good. Good luck on your renovating dear." Inko said as she drove off to work.

As she stopped her car on a red light, she spotted a man terrorizing a kid in an alleyway. Inko simply raised her hand, visualized what she wanted to pull, and pulled.

Screams came from the alleyway as the man fled with his mouth bleeding. All of his teeth was pulled out of his mouth.

Inko then drove on when the traffic light changed. She smiled at her small act of secret vigilantism as she readied herself for another court case to deal with.

She let her husband have his hobbies, why can't she.
 
Media Baron
Despite being a stay home husband, Hisashi was in contact on his many businesses, usually by periodic check ups on the stock market and paid informants in the ranks, on both sides of the companies.

He preferred to be seen as a media baron, the owner and majority share holder of numerous media companies. It was an easy way to misdirect people, to make them focus on the media empire and not the many tendrils he made in other industries, particularly in pharmaceuticals, medical technologies, bioengineering, and more. It was mostly due to his medical license he renewed from time to time, to catch up on any shifts in medicine.

But he knew how the public reacted after living for a long time. Media and its control was the sledgehammer and the scalpel in fixing the hero obsessed culture of the country. And by his influence, many things were made or at least prevented.

For example, the Quirk Regulation Laws haphazardly made during the martial law period of the country. Passed in the early years of quirks and before the importation of the Hero System from Rhode Island, and less spoken of the resulting state's rights issues among the sixty something states, Native American Homelands, and the federal government the better, the laws were breaches of privacy, illegal human experimentation, and internment camps masquerading as segregated communities. Then again, there were reason to believe that the worrisome neighbors were also doing unethical human experimentation for some super soldier program or improved mass indoctrination techniques. Numerous wars in the era were still downplayed as minor skirmishes among the three hundred sovereign nations and corporations of the current year.

It took decades of putting that dark and hidden history into light by his paid and directed journalists, and even then, the government continued to deny that they even happened.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, it seemed.

It was then utter ironic for the spawn of the Bakugous to shout at his son such remarks. 'Go live in a quirkless neighborhood then Deku!' was one. 'Even if you have an immortality quirk, you're basically quirkless anyway!' was another. 'Quirkless people can't be heroes, why should you!?' made him want to crush the impudent brat's hands just to repeat the words back at him.

But no, his wife reminded him, cautioned him, warned him, that grabbing the sledgehammer to deal with problems would only make a bigger mess to deal with, better use the scalpel. And no, crushing one kid's hands doesn't count as using a scalpel to fix society.

His sweet wife did reminded him of his title as a media baron, those spinner of tales, those framer of perspectives, those echo of agendas. Hisashi grinned at his scalpel.

"Kacchan," Hisashi emphasized to make it sound more belittling, "may I have a word, in private?" it sounded like a question but it was nothing less than a command. The young five year old followed him with a face best described as a baby perpetually sucking on a strong lemon, in his opinion.

When the two were alone in the woods, Hisashi let some of his trained aura out to make the boy froze in place.

"Now, Kacchan, I am sure you know why I brought you here, alone, in the woods, away from anyone who might come to your rescue."

Kacchan tried to look strong, setting of his sparklers from his hands like he was peeing his pants.

"I will only warn you once. If not, you will have to deal with my wife, then both of us if you continue to defy us a third time." Hisashi looked down on the five year old with a killing glare.

"I want you to stop bullying my son, and stop any other bullying on him if possible. Mostly because I am not blind to the cruelties children inflict on each other and calling it a fun game. If not, well, I am a media baron after all. It would be easy to edit your life story into a story I want."

Hisashi grinned like a dragon upon his pray.

"Once upon a time, there was a child, a boy, who was given a great power and became a tyrant, a mad man, a bully. He was kicked out, hated, a villain in all but name. But it was his cruelty that made a change in the world, to help protect the people he tormented, he harmed, he bullied."

He left a pause for effect.

"Is that the story you want your life to be? To become a forgotten extra in the story I have the power to write?"

Kacchan shook his little head. One could say he was crying, but, of course, tiny big boys don't cry.

"How about this story?" Hisashi said as he rested his hand on his chin in a casual thinking gesture.

"Once upon a time, there was a child, a boy, who was given a great power and used it to protect people, no matter how great or small they are. He was celebrated, loved, a hero everyone cheered for. It was because of him that people felt safe, felt protected, felt peace."

Again, a pause for dramatic effect.

"Is that the story you want to hear? The story you read of yourself in the history books?"

Kacchan nodded silently at that.

"Good. Now, actions speak louder than words, Kacchan. And I do hope you learn this lesson to heart. No more bullying of Izuku."

He nodded a bit faster.

"Good." the menacing aura faded instantly, lifting the suffocating atmosphere away.

"It's nice to see we have an understanding. Now, I'm sure they'll be wondering about us soon. Let's go back before they notice us gone for too long, shall we?" Hisashi said as he grabbed Kacchan's hand and petted his head while they walked back.

Hisashi did got in trouble for 'being overly dramatic again' from his wife who he didn't realize was watching the whole scene behind a tree.

He did decide to teach and play with Izuku with a lot more interesting games and lessons. He made sure to acquire a quirk to make sure the lessons stuck instead of being forgotten, and regularly trained him to deal with things quirklessly and easily.

--------

This chapter takes place when Izuku and Katsuki are five and everyone basically thinks Izuku is 'basically quirkless'.
 
Last edited:
Quirkless, Not Useless
The lessons with his dad were fun.

Mostly stories of the times when quirks were a minority. Tidbits of history of a time his dad lived through.

Izuku knew that quirks started with a glowing baby in China. He didn't knew that said baby might had been one that became world famous, especially when the Chinese government took the baby for the crime of being 'illegal reincarnation of a Buddhist monk'. He didn't even knew that the glowing girl later returned as one of the soldiers of the villain known as the Hive during the Second Chinese Civil War. Nor the fact the Hive was Chairman Yang with a powerful mind control quirk and an ardent true believer of his extreme collectivist ideology. Remaking human society to be more like ants was terrifying after thinking and mumbling about it.

He learned of Heatwave and his near success to destroy the world so a better world would rise out of the ruins by heating the atmosphere around Siberia to melt the permafrost completely. The international hero group, the Global Climate Restoration Team, were still repairing the damages from that disaster.

Dad was even there when the mysterious AI group called the Hexadecimal went public. Of course, the reveal of the secretive super intelligent AI group were ignored and thought to be another conspiracy theory turned viral during the chaos.

War, extreme political polarization, martial law, economic and environmental collapse, the rise of cults and conspiracy theories into the mainstream, the total collapse of trust on science due to their inability to explain how quirks work, the resulting pandemics when medicine both went on short supply, and when anti-vaccine and alternative medicine people became super popular around the world, the fact that his dad lived through all that and came out with barely a scratch only made his dad seem more powerful in Izuku's eyes.

Hisashi ruffled Izuku's hair with a grin.

"You're lucky to live in a time like this. Compared to the early years, it's a lot safer. People trusting institutions, trusting each other again, even if they put said trust on the wrong thing." Izuku's dad was rather vocal on how he hated the hero worship of current society.

Hisashi then showed him a pile of old books in the home library, world record books from the pre-quirk to the early quirk years, before they stopped making them.

"I had to call in a favor from an old friend just to find these." Izuku sat on his father's lap as they read through the old world record books.

"Izuku, look at them, these people did all this without a quirk." Hisashi said as he pointed at a picture of a man with a bunch of stuff around him. The record said that he ate and digested metal and glass like it was nothing. The explanation given was a thicker stomach lining but Izuku started to wonder if it was a quirk, one more invisible and hidden and thus more likely to give an explanation that seemed to make sense.

"Izuku," Hisashi said, "Izuku." he firmly repeated, breaking Izuku from his thoughts. "You were mumbling again son." he said with a frown. "Izuku. You're smart, intelligent. So don't make the assumption that everything has to be about the quirk. You're insulting these people by thinking that. They did all this without a quirk. Why would you think they need a quirk to solve a Rubik's Cube in a few seconds? Why would you think they need a quirk to play hundreds of simultaneous chess games against actual players and win most if not all of them? Why would you think they need a quirk to hold their breath for twenty two minutes?"

Hisashi waited for an answer but as Izuku thought it deeply, it didn't really made sense why he assumed those people needed quirks at all.

Hisashi softly smiled at his son.

"Izuku, despite what everyone thinks, quirks aren't everything. You may as well be quirkless, but you're not useless. Always remember that. You can still do things other people can't do."

Izuku began to cry and hugged his dad as the tears poured out. Hisashi hugged his son back, letting the tears ruin his suit because there's more important things than his suits.

He waited until the tears and sobbing ended.

"Izuku, do you want to do some training? To reach peak human ability?" Hisashi calmly and carefully whispered. "It's gonna be tough. It's gonna be hard. So I'm asking you if you really want this. Your mother wouldn't want to see you in danger after all."

Hisashi saw the determined look on his son's eyes. His mind was already made up either way.

"I'll do it dad. I want to be a hero for everyone."

Hisashi ruffled his son's hair once again.

"You definitely got your uncle Buri's stubborn heart." Hisashi sighed. "Very well. We're gonna train you to be the best you could ever be. We'll gonna need some teachers and looking up some exercise and training programs first."

Hisashi chuckled at the sight of his son's excitement as he started to mumble in a strange language, so his son won't pick up his plans.

"Dad, what language are you mumbling in?" Izuku asked.

"Oh, nothing much really. Some Quenya, Klingon, Dothraki…" Hisashi grinned as he ruffled Izuku's hair.

"Let that be a lesson to you. If you can't keep yourself from mumbling, speak in a language that no one can understand, that way, the villains won't learn of your plans ahead of time."

Izuku's eyes lit up at the idea as he started to mumble how useful that would be.

"We should also add some sign language, braille, mirror writing, and cryptography into the mix as well. Don't want a villain learn of your plans in the future." Hisashi said as he gotten up. "Now come Izuku. I can smell the katsudon being cooked already." The two headed to the dinning room for a family dinner.

------------------

The world records are real.

Michel Lotito is famous for his ability to eat metal and glass, up to the point of eating a small plane.

Fastest Rubik's Cube solve time is 6.54 seconds. Extra tidbit, fastest Rubik's Cube solve time using their feet is 25.14 seconds.

Iranian grandmaster Ehsan Ghaem-Maghami played the most simultaneous games against 604 players in 25 hours, winning 580, 16 ties, and 8 loses.

Tom Sietas held his breath underwater for 22 minutes and 22 seconds.

It is a tendency for contemporary people to see the past in their perspective. So a quirk focused society would look back in history with a quirk focused mentality. Like wondering if Joan of Arc got a foresight quirk for example.
 
Last edited:
Three Drunks and an Adoption
The Nightshade Bar was owned by a friend of Hisashi, a man of shadowy mist known only as Kurogiri.

The bar itself was rather shady, in the poor part of town, but Hisashi simply walked in his typical business suit without a care.

He sat next to an old man as the bartender went to make the usual drinks.

"Tsubasa, it's been a while." Hisashi said as the old doctor took a shot of his whiskey. "Is there a reason for calling me out here this late?"

Dr. Tsubasa placed a folder on the table.

"I did what ya asked, sensei. Took weeks of travel and paperwork to even use their electron microscope without too many questions."

"Centuries ago, people used to send their DNA through the mail in specialized DNA kits just to have their ancestry checked. It was a big fad at the time." Hisashi said, disgusted at the level of red tape placed on the medical community out of nonsensical if well intention fears long ago. A glass of whiskey with a large spherical ice cube slid to Hisashi. He picked it up and started drinking. "Of course, that was before the Mombasa Treaty was made by the UN vaguely banning all human experimentation."

"It was a shame too. 3D printed organs technology abandoned, test tube babies stopped being done, even a simple blood test has to go through insane ethical paperwork…" Dr. Tsubasa muttered as he drank his shot. Hisashi went to skim on the contents of the folder.

"So, he's clean? No invisible quirks at all?"

"I checked every chromosome for any unusual jutted out areas. Nothing out of the ordinary." Dr. Tsubasa said as he stopped and placed his glass down. "I did notice one thing though. Since it's hard to get access to an electron microscope to look at human DNA, I went to look at other parts of the cell, particularly the mitochondrial DNA. Still normal, nothing jutting out, but it was when I was moving the scanned area around that I saw it. I don't know what it is exactly. It looked like mitochondrial DNA except it's in the nucleus. Not only that but instead of jutting out regions typical for quirks, it had slightly longer tendrils."

"So he has an invisible quirk?"

Dr. Tsubasa shrugged.

"I don't know. If it is, that overturned what the medical community manage to gather on the quirk and DNA connection." Dr. Tsubasa returned to his drinking. "Hopefully I don't have to spew that old cult nonsense about pinky toe joints again." he muttered under his breath.

Hisashi downed his glass of whiskey and let Kurogiri refilled it before drinking it quickly once more. He preferred to be drunk before dealing with the worse case scenarios that would usually entered his mind when it came to potential dangers that would affect his family.

Dr. Tsubasa silently drunk his share as well.

The two didn't noticed the door of the bar opening and Kurogiri's eyes widening in fear. The sound of high heels hidden by the noise of the bar until it was too late.

She took a seat next to Hisashi.

He turned around.

Inko sat there with an intense annoyed look on her face.

Hisasi gulped.

"Hello dear, surprised to see you here."

"Not now Hisashi." Inko said before turning to Kurogiri. "Give me a bottle of your strongest scotch."

Dr. Tsubasa turned away, trying to hide his face from the irritated mother with the power to pull small objects at her, like blood vessels or small chunks of brain matter. He even leaned away a bit, not wanting to be too close to when such a power was held by a drunk.

"... That bad?" Hisashi opened.

"Bad? Bad is putting it fucking lightly." Inko said as she grabbed the opened bottle from Kurogiri's hands and drunk straight from it. "I would love to strangle, no, pull the eyes out of the person who wrote that medical control bill. I made a solid case pointing out the flaws of the law and the imbecile of a judge went with appeal to tradition and kept the law in place! 'It was passed to protect those with quirks in the early years and it'll protect in the years to come' my ass!" Inko jugged on the scotch bottle. "Now he set a precedent using that law as a basis."

Dr. Tsubasa turned to face Inko.

"Which law did you try to take down, Mrs. Midoriya?"

Inko calmed down a bit.

"The old Genetic and Citizen Profile Database law. Of course, it wasn't called that but that's basically what the law is. The public has no access to it, let alone knew much about it, ever since they repealed the Freedom of Information Act in the early quirk years. The fucking slap to the face is that private businesses are free to look into the database, and there's no background checks on the businesses."

Hisashi held his wife's hand.

"Inko, my love," he said as he gave off an intimidating aura and a terrifying glare on his face. "We will do everything in our power to deal with that law. With our resources, we can sow chaos and distrust on the government, show the people how much they lied to them, how dystopic our nation truly is. We will ruined them and be overthrown."

"Hisashi…" Inko whispered as she began to tear up.

Kurogiri coughed.

"Uh, sensei, please lower down your volume. You're scaring my patrons." that's when the couple noticed the silence in the bar as everyone stopped what they're doing and looked away. Hisashi lowered down his terrifying aura as Inko grinned.

"Seems that I have I use for you, Mr. Media Baron." Inko said sweetly. As sweet as sugar with a hint of arsenic. "I got a plan. We need both of our connections but we can take down that massive human rights abuse with the proper steps."

Hisasi grinned as Inko payed for her bottle. He made sure to put the folder away without her noticing before the couple headed home.

"I noticed Dr. Tsubasa there." Inko said.

"He gave me the results of my recent check up."

"Still with the whole cloak and dagger routine, dear?"

"The illegal genetic database this country apparently have showed how much secrecy is needed."

Inko sighed.

"True, I'll give you that." Inko grinned as she held the bottle of scotch as they soon reached their home. Hisashi unlocked and opened the door for her.

"Well, Izuku's at the Bakugou's for a sleepover." Inko said as she went closer to her husband. "It's late at night, and it's just the three of us. You, me, and half a bottle of scotch. How's about we have a bit of fun? I'm sure you have something fun in that basement of yours."

The fun stopped when a car parked outside the house. Seeing this, Inko quickly tried to look presentable and not lose face in front of a potential client, putting the bottle of scotch on Hisashi's hands.

A rather tired woman appeared with a traumatized child wearing ruined clothes and silver hair, and a folder full of paperwork. The kid wore gloves that looked forced onto him.

"Mr. and Mrs. Midoriya?" the woman asked in an utterly dead and monotone voice.

"Yes. Is something the matter?" Inko asked. The woman just raised the folder to which Inko went to get.

"As under the Anti-Homeless and Family Ties Act of 2065, you are now the legal guardian of your nephew."

"Nephew? I have a nephew? But I was adopted and an only child."

"The government did a genetics test and found that you're the closest match in the database." the woman let go of the young boy. "He was found homeless near the burned out ruins of his old home, collateral damage from a villain fight. Everyone but him perished. He was living in the streets until we found him and looked for his closest relatives, which is you. Congratulations, you have a nephew. He's none refundable. Thank you and come again." the woman then entered her car and left.

There was a moment of silence to process what just happened.

"... That woman looked and sounded deader than a millenial with student debt working as an unpaid intern in retail for twenty years." Hisashi muttered as Inko opened up the folder to read the child's file. "Remind me to put a focus on the state of child services if that's what the taxpayers are getting with their taxes."

"Well, Shimura Tenko," Hisashi's eyes went wide in silent shock as he looked at Inko and the boy. "Looks like you'll be living with us now. Interesting quirk you got there. Well, we should get you cleaned up and fed. We got leftover pizza in the fridge. Do you like Hawaiian pizza?" Inko asked as she lead the boy into the house, passing by Hisashi by the door.

"Y-yes… I-I like pizza…" Tenko softly replied.

Hisashi turned to look at Tenko as his wife happily chatted with him. It was easy to tell that she wanted to protect and mother him already. He then looked at the bottle of scotch and downed the remaining half in a few gulps.

-----------

Izuku is 5, so that roughly makes Tenko 9 or 10, if I got the timeline right.

I follow a lot of futurist news and one thing that bugs me is that MHA takes place in some nebulous future yet 3D printed organs aren't a thing.

I personally think a lot of factors were involved but the major ones are illegal human experimentation during the chaos of the early quirk years that resulted in a post-chaos backlash, and the inability of science to adequately explain the rather blatant disregard of the laws of nature by quirks resulting in trust in science going into an all time low. Think the mental gymnastics and distrust of experts and peer review Flat Earthers have and apply it to society and individuals at large, resulting in a rise of cults and conspiracy theories going mainstream.

Also, 3D printed organs is a technology being researched today. So trying to compare that to the Mars base comment in canon is intellectually dishonest since both rely on completely different technological and economical foundations.
 
In-Laws
The sudden government enforced adoption of Shimura Tenko meant Inko called her parents and the Bakugous for a party to help ease Tenko into feeling welcomed.

The only thing on Hisashi's mind was that the faster the paperwork was signed, the faster the Shimura name was replaced with Midoriya.

Tenko looked at Hisashi as he looked back at him while he was preparing a whole five star meal for the two families. Hisashi didn't realized that he was the type to stress cook. At least his collection of quirks meant that he could cook and stare without an accident.

"Hisashi, stop looking at Tenko like he murdered your cat and look at what you're cooking. You're about to put sugar on the salmon." Inko firmly reminded her husband as she prepared some tea for Tenko.

Inko smiled as she poured green tea into a cup. Tenko now wore gloves that doesn't cover his thumb and index finger both for improved grip and prevented his quirk from activating.

"Pinkies up." Inko said as she made the gesture when she held her cup of tea. Tenko followed as it made both proper manners and a way to make sure his quirk won't activate by accident. Many layers of protection was necessary for everyone's sake.

They heard a door opening as Izuku entered the house and saw Tenko with wide eyes.

"Mama! Papa! You got me a big brother!?"

Inko choked on her tea.

"From the mouths of babes." Hisashi muttered as he chuckled while mixing the mixture for cheesecake.

"Izuku, we're adopting Tenko. Say hello to your big brother." Izuku waved his hand as Mitsuki walked in.

"Koko! This is such a surprise." she said as she looked at Tenko. "You did call your parents about the news?"

"Of course I did. They're heading here as we speak."

"Think they're going to cry themselves a lake at their new grandchild?" Inko rolled her eyes as she grinned at the joke.

"They would probably flood the city when I will get test tube babies legal once more. I know they're too old but it's something they should had been able to get." Mitsuki playfully punched Inko's arm.

"They wouldn't had gotten you if they did, and where would I be? I wouldn't have gotten the damn balls to asked Masaru on a date. We both know the guy's as dense as an anime protag back in high school."

"That's because he was busy studying for a good college. And what about you back in high school? I seem to recall a weird months long phase where you went all magical girl on me." Mitsuki's face redden.

"We do not talk about that Koko! Those were the most embarrassing months of my life!"

"Still, that vigilante gang disappeared without a trace since then…" Inko said before Mitsuki managed to change the subject.

Tenko and Izuku looked at each other, Tenko with a wary look and Izuku with a wide eyed look of wonder.

"Papa makes great food." Izuku said as the smell of cake being baked filled the air, mixing with the smell of cooked salmon and smoked ham.

"I-it smells good." Tenko muttered.

Inko looked at the slices of smoked ham.

"Dear, please tell me that's for lunch or something. My parents need to watch their blood pressure after all."

"Oh, those would be made into ham and cheese sandwiches for Izuku and Tenko, especially for school. I'm making some cheese fondue for the cheese part."

Mitsuki whistled.

"What? No caviar and gold flakes to add into the meal?" she joked.

"Yes, cause everyone thinks fish eggs and the taste of conspicuous consumption makes for the best children's food." Hisashi muttered as he pulled the cake out of the oven.

"In your century perhaps." Mitsuki said as Izuku and Tenko went to look at the large plate of smoked ham slices.

"No Izuku, Tenko. Those are for later." Hisashi said as he started to slice the cake into three layers. The two watched Hisashi spread a layer of frosting between the layers before spreading the frosting on the cake surface. He then started to decorate the cake with the frosting before grabbing the chocolate syrup to write 'Happy Adoption Tenko!'.

Hisashi looked at the cake with a glare.

"I don't know if that fits or not." he muttered.

"I-I don't mind." Tenko said as he looked at the lettering.

"How about we get a spare room ready for Tenko to have? We do have that spare room we used as a makeshift storage." Inko said to the two before returning to her chat with Mitsuki.

Izuku raised his hand to Tenko with an innocent smile.

"Let's go! You'll have the room next to mine." Izuku said but Tenko looked at the raised hand with fear.

"I-I don't want to hurt you…" Tenko whispered as he looked down in shame.

"Huh? What's wrong?"

"It's my quirk. If I touch something with all five fingers, it'll turn to dust." he said with some fidgeting and scratching his neck while looking away.

"That's an amazing quirk! You can help rescue people easily with that! You could even help in recycling just by turning things into dust! Does your quirk follow the conservation of matter as well or does it force the atoms to break into their individual elements? If that's the case, you could help out in mining and processing as well, no need to break apart rocks for ore when you can turn them to dust and melt the dust! You could even help break apart organic matter and turn them into compost if it worked differently…"

Tenko got lost as Izuku slowly muttered out the many ways his quirk could help people. He didn't notice the tears falling from his face for a few minutes.

"Tenko? Is something wrong dear?" Inko asked as it broke Tenko from his trance. He cried a bit louder.

"T-that's the nicest thing anyone had said about me."

Izuku went to hug Tenko with a determined look on his face.

"Don't worry big brother. Because I am here!" Izuku said as he looked up at Tenko. Tenko returned the hug while he cried as Mitsuki took some pictures of the cute scene. Inko teared up a bit.

Hisashi had a silent groan at the scene as he watched, for his son decided to quote that blond brick out of anything else.

"Hisashi! The muffins!" Inko shouted as the fire alarm began to ding. Hisashi quickly returned to his cooking. Luckily, the muffins were safe.

A few hours, and some cooking and moving later, the Hasegawas arrived from their home in the countryside.

Shinichi and Ran, Inko's adopted parents, were a sweet couple. They wanted a child so badly, only to find out that they were sterile. Hisashi knew, as a professionally trained doctor, that there were treatments for such things, or ways to go around it, but they're still illegal by the government.

The couple still looked youthful in their old age as Ran went with Inko to meet Tenko while Hisashi went to the family library with Shinichi. Hisashi did overheard his mother-in-law wondering why the orphanage went with Akatani Inko when she was in fact a Shimura.

Hisashi sighed as he placed on the center table the results of the genetics test, close to the glasses and an opened bottle of scotch. He knew going behind his wife's back on the rather invasive test, in the current time period's opinion anyway, would be problematic but anything to ease his worry on the possibility of a hidden quirk. He missed his brother's quirk and the consequences hounded him ever since.

"You decided to show me this why?" Shinichi muttered as he skimmed the file.

"I was planning to show it to you as an outside expert a week or two from now but since you're here for Tenko, why not catch two birds with one stone?"

"I'm not a genetics expert here."

"Ah, but your friend is. Not to mention that analysis quirk of yours could help. This is the health of my son, your grandson, after all. From what I could gather from the results. He has no quirk. His DNA is spotless of any abnormal nucleotides typical of quirks. Except for the existence of a mitochondrial DNA like structure in the nucleus of his cells, something quirks never manifested before."

Shinichi whistled as he looked at the data.

"You even got his genome mapped out. Didn't they made that illegal a century ago?"

"Yes, yes, the Mombasa Treaty would had made the Human Genome Project illegal if it existed decades earlier. Now focus. An honest opinion. Does Izuku have a quirk or not?" Hisashi whispered as if the walls could hear any noise.

Shinichi stopped and looked up at his son-in-law.

"You didn't feel anything?"

"I didn't felt my brother's quirk and I can't pull it from him. It might be the same with Izuku but the results are saying otherwise." Hisashi began to mutter as he tried to make sense of it all. It's uncharted territory in quirk research and a part of him was ecstatic on the potential. But a part of him was also worried for unknown consequences that would affect his son and family.

He was reminded of the Tinayak Incident in the Philippines back in the early quirk years, where thousands of monstrous black babies burst forth from their mother's wombs and attacked people. Or the Wendigo Incident in Quebec back when it was under Canada, old people suddenly attacking and eating people while changing into similar monstrosities.

"Hisashi, Hisashi! Get a hold of yourself!" Shinichi shouted as he shook Hisashi out of his memories.

"Sorry… sorry for that." Hisashi muttered as he took a seat and poured himself a glass of scotch.

Shinichi sighed.

"I'll go bring this to my friend. Try to send a copy to other people as well. I'm sure you can call in a favor or two from some people or groups."

Hisashi rolled his eyes as he took a sip.

"Last thing I want is for certain interests come knocking in my territory."

"And who's the guy who helped shove that Open Immigration Act through the government centuries ago?"

"Those nationalistic idiots would let the country die a slow death if it meant keeping the country's pride in being 'genetically homogeneous'." Hisashi muttered before he looked at Shinichi with suspicion. "You knew?" Shinichi shrugged.

"I was a famous detective once. Though, you're outside my typical case. I did some research on you, just in case, protective father and all." Hisashi chuckled.

"I'm certain I did more research on you than you did on me."

"True, then again who could say they got the secret shogun of Japan as their son-in-law."

"Call me traditionalist or a reactionary. What was considered liberal and radical then is now conservative and reactionary now. Besides, I have a soft spot for the imperial family if not the many governments from then to now. But we're losing track here. Keep the copy. I'll call my contacts in the Foundation for another look at the results."

Shinichi nodded as he poured and took a sip of scotch.

"I would say you're being paranoid here. Who's to say this is just a hidden quirk you're worrying too much? No one really knows what quirks are." Shinichi raised his hand with the glass of scotch on it. "After all, there are more things on heaven and Earth, Hisashi, than are known in your philosophy. My final case is proof of that."

Shinichi chuckled as he placed his glass down.

"How about asking the Hypatia Institute?"

"The puppets of the Hexidecimal? I might as well asked the Heralds of the Singularity. No. I'm wary of those secretive super AI. Who knows what they're doing on their island fortresses."

"Does Inko know about this?"

"She does now." Inko said as she walked in the library. She smiled as she looked as her father and husband. "Dad, come see Tenko. I'll have a chat with my husband on the promises made during marriage."

"She might had got my love of learning but she took after Ran. She judo slammed me on the ground after coming clean. Well, nice knowing you." Shinichi muttered to Hisashi as he patted his son-in-law's back before walking away.

Hisashi ended up coming clean, particularly mumbling out his hand in Shimura Nana's death, and he found himself flung onto the floor by his pulled tie from his wife's quirk and a foot pressed on his back.

"Now dear, explain everything properly before I decide to pull on a vertebrae or pinch a blood vessel." she calmly asked.

In the end, it was decided that Hisashi would be sleeping in the couch for a month and tasked in renovating the spare room to be Tenko's bedroom with anything and everything he desired.

-----------

I decided to make the familiar, now former kid, detective and judo flipping girlfriend to be Inko's parents as a bit of a cameo with a bit of another background world building/cryptic background reference.

Also, Underground Heroes would have a lot of free agency and lack of public accountability compared the flashier heroes. It's possible that they were, or some still are, basically Black Ops agents in another name.
 
Fun & Games
Once in every two weeks, the two families came together for family game night.

They usually played a board game, though there was a growing list of games banned from family game night.

Risk was banned. Mostly due to Hisashi, Izuku, and Katsuki ending up in a three way war for world domination with escalating war and sometimes resulting into a 1984 scenario where the battles shift back and forth while leaving the core territory in place. But Katsuki's patience doesn't last long, which resulted in father and son in teaming up to eliminate him from play and ending up in a basic cold war like scenario with proxy wars. The endless war turned out to be a preferred feature by both sides 'to push technological advancement under a controlled and preferred fashion'.

Monopoly was banned. Mostly due to Hisashi, Izuku, and Katsuki ending up either uniting into a real estate cartel or developing an actual three sided gang war in a game of Monopoly.

Blackjack was banned. Mostly because Hisashi taught Izuku on keeping a good poker face, counting the cards, and how to deal the cards like a professional. Luckily for everyone, there was no betting involved.

Cards against Humanity was still ok to play, though Inko has some reservations on playing it with Izuku.

Betrayal at House on the Hill was exciting, especially when Hisashi ended up as the villain. He really went ham on the performance. When Izuku played the villain, it was almost impossible to tell or figure him out, until the last moment when he decided to monologue his plan before he won.

"And to think you want to be a damn hero Deku!" Katsuki shouted as Izuku won a game.

"The best way to defeat a villain is to think like a villain. Right papa?" Izuku said with a glance at his proud and agreeing father.

Another game they played was Cluedo. It was much more into Izuku's style as he had the most wins in the game. Though Katsuki didn't like the need to wait and guess, calling it 'a game that forced people to play the police instead of the actual fucking police!'.

"The fucking police? I didn't know they added that division, is that where they fuck people over literally or did the police hired some strippers? If that's the case, your mother and I are quite a villainous pair." Masaru's rare quips shut Katsuki's mouth in an instant. The hilarious irony of his statement made Hisashi grin while Mitsuki laughed her butt off.

But there were times when the adults got busy with work and Hisashi became the unofficial babysitter for the three boys.

It was during the months he fell into an RPG book collecting hobby, some time after Izuku's seventh birthday, that really made family game night something a little more exciting.

Hisashi set up the board, the snacks, the GM screen, the books, and the character sheets ready for a game of 14th Edition D&D, the less said of the horribly mangled 13th edition the better.

Though was still worried for his son.

Something wasn't right not matter how much his wife kept telling him that he was just being paranoid. After all, as much as Izuku loved to learn, Hisashi knew it's just not possible for a quirkless Japanese person to become naturally fluent in Irish Gaelic after watching some old movies and listening to some old songs.

Another thing was the report he managed to kept secret from his wife. The analysis of Izuku's DNA by his father-in-law's friend. She did a randomized CRISPR gene replacement, only to find that the mysterious DNA loop repaired and undid any changes. Another test, subjecting it to radiation to cause mutations, resulted in the same loop repairing every damage to the DNA.

It might have been the paranoia talking, the same paranoia that protected him in the centuries of leading a number of covert groups in the shadows, but something needed his son's DNA to remain the same no matter what. Didn't helped when it was discovered in a deeper analysis that there was a significant clean up of junk DNA. But the discoveries only made him question and worry even more.

After all, he hated anyone using his family in their mysterious plans. He told Dr. Tsubasa about this and he happily helped in the research on his son's DNA to figure out what was going on. Hisashi knew that it would help in the Noumu research and development but what his family didn't know won't hurt them.

"Dad?" Tenko said, shaking him from his mumbled thoughts. "Something wrong?"

"Oh, nothing, just thinking about fantasy novels turned movies." Hisashi said with a grin as Tenko took a seat. He's much healthier and more confident than when he first met the boy. Of course, Inko made him promise not to say anything about being the one who killed his grandmother or any other connection to his family.

"Is that why you were speaking in Irish, dad?"

"It's not Irish. It's Sindarin. Perhaps we should have a movie night for all nine Tolkien movies. The originals, not the remakes."

"Dad. Those are really old movies. The special effects are cringy enough to look at." Tenko then looked down at the prepared table. "So… new game?"

"More like a new campaign. Behold the wonders of the old style RPG."

Tenko looked at the assortment of papers, books, and printed maps.

"How many trees did you kill for all that?" Tenko joked. "These are so analog I don't know how people played RPGs before computers."

"It's called an imagination. You should try it. Anything is a potential source of inspiration." Hisashi said, hoping that Tenko took the bait to play instead of going to his room to play on his console games.

"Fine." Tenko took a seat. "One game." Hisashi grinned. Hook, line, and sinker.

Bakugou and Izuku walked in the house, trying to go to the bathroom quietly like a pair of simmering tea kettles. Hisashi sighed at the scratches, bruises, and a broken nose on Izuku.

"What happened this time?" he asked, giving off a bit of an aura off at the sight of his son.

"Fucking… Izuku, the bleeding heart idiot he is, climbed up a tree to get a little girl's cat that's stuck on it, crying the whole time. Said cat scratched the hell at him and they both fell, using his own body and face to cushion the fall for the dang cat." Bakugou explained with a hint of fear in his formal tone. A look at the scratches on Izuku's hands and forearms suggested small animal claws, likely to be from a cat. The bruises on his face is consistent with falling face first on the ground.

Tenko gotten up only for Hisashi to stand up to administer some first aid. He told Bakugou to take a seat and have a snack in the mean time.

Father and son walked to the kitchen where Hisashi pulled up a large first aid box from the first aid lessons he gave to Izuku months earlier. Of course, bandaging his son up meant an ample way to hide the usage of his Healing Touch quirk he stole from a retired masseur decades ago.

"Izuku, this is the fifth time this week, and it's way early in the week."

"Yes dad…" Izuku said as he winced at the applied iodine on the scratches.

"It doesn't help that you stalk heroes around like the paparazzi. There are better ways to be a journalist than that Izuku."

"I know dad…" Acting like a teenager ignoring the world? Seriously?

"Your mother and I agreed to have you betrothed to the imperial princess of Nusantara this afternoon. We just need your signature and blood seal on the contract." Hisashi said as he bandaged up his son's hands.

"Of course da- wait what?" Izuku looked at his father in surprise.

"Oh, so you were listening. Good to know you didn't put your dear old dad on hold there." Hisashi said before he placed a band-aid on Izuku's nose, subtly realigning and fixing it.

"Something on your mind son?"

Izuku sighed.

"Dad. Do I really have a quirk?"

Hisashi thought of what to say, reminded of a conversation with Tsubasa on what they managed to discover.

"Well," the doctor said as he mixed his mug of coffee. "If we show this to some quirk specialists, they would likely say that Izuku has some sort of immortality quirk, one that repairs his DNA, preventing cancers, retroviruses, cell damage, lowering free radicals, and who knows what else. Funny that the lie turned out to be an accidental truth."

"If is it the exact truth…" Hisashi muttered out.

"What dad?"

Hisashi sighed.

"You're mother's going to kill me if she finds out." Hisashi lowered himself to Izuku's height. "I got worried. My family has a history of genetic illness. I got worried you might have inherited my brother's illness or carried it. So, I used my medical connections to look at your DNA closely. I know it's almost impossible to test an immortality quirk but they manage to find something. Your cells heal themselves and any damage on your DNA fixes itself. It's a good sign of an immortality quirk. But Izuku, remember, it's immortality, not regeneration. I don't want you to get hurt."

Izuku teared at the news.

"I can't ignore people in need of help."

Hisashi smiled as he ruffled his son's hair.

"I know. You got your brother's metaphorical heart. Can't blame a protective father from trying though." Hisashi then raised a finger on his lips. "Our secret. Mama shouldn't know I told you that."

Izuku nodded in agreement as they returned to the room.

"Now boys, take a seat. We'll start with character creation before we start with the campaign." Hisashi said as Izuku, Katsuki, and Tenko began filling out their character sheets.

Izuku went with a human Holy Champion, basically a paladin before they expanded the class for all alignments and renamed it as the Champion class.

Katsuki went with an enchanted human Berserker Barbarian, which wasn't a surprise.

Tenko went with a dark elf Pact Warlock, interesting for its useful implications in the campaign.

Hisashi made a sinister grin as he watched behind the safety of the GM screen.

"Now, let us set the stage of this campaign. The world of Aberon was once a world where magic was rare and the gods silent. Until two hundred years ago, when the Awakening occurred. Monsters burst forth from their slumber, madness gripped the lands, the gods gave their blessings and curses freely, and humans found themselves gaining magic unique to themselves. In the time of chaos a Demon King rose, to try to bring the world into his malevolent dominion. But he was defeated by a great hero of the light. But defeat did not mean destroy, and his whispers echoed in those easily tempted by their desires. And so, in a small town of Greendale, three future heroes were resting in an inn before disaster hits the town…"

As much as his wife hates Hisashi's tendency for the dramatic, he did use it well to make a captive audience in his shows.

----------

I decided to put the more plot heavy stuff on an Izuku focused sequel when he goes to UA. Think of the breadcrumbs of mystery as foreshadowing. This story was originally planned to be a DFO cute and disturbing fluff story after all. Also, Hisashi really wants a break but things from his past is slowly catching up anyway.
 
Break a Leg
Hisashi looked at the old drawings of his son's first RPG character. The logo he made on the shield bothered him. It looked like an upside down on-off symbol with the line being longer so the tips of the broken circle were pointing at the middle of the line.

The symbol looked so familiar yet he can't recall where it reminded him of. Izuku kept using it for every character he made.

He soon shook himself out of the paranoia and refocused on the other drawings of the characters made for the other games they played after they completed the campaign and gotten bored of the fantasy setting.

The superhero genre basically lost its appeal when the world became a superhero setting.

Hisashi remembered the early quirk years well. People were using the X-Men comics as a way to try to make sense of what was happening.

Of course, in time, calling people mutants became an insult and a rather popular talk show host in the US unintentionally made the word 'quirk' the politically correct term which completely changed the definition of the word in English, though there were still people preferring other terms like metahuman or meta for short. At least it wasn't parahuman. Hisashi knew that there's a difference in his long life. Even though he preferred to ignore that side of the equation.

Though, it only reminded Hisashi of post-modernism's edgier and paranoid cultural successor that was neo-post-modernism. Unlike post-modernism's playfulness on everything, the edgier version just fomented distrust and paranoia, breaking down social and cultural bonds and trust. At least his old college roommate, a Samuel Cole Peterson the most influential philosopher of the 21st century, managed to bring back sanity from that cultural revolution.

Which reminded Hisashi to double check on the Samuel Cole Peterson Foundation. They had yet to reply on the DNA analysis he asked years ago.

Refocusing on the drawings, Hisashi returned to the campaigns he and the boys played.

5th Edition Exalted made for a good game to make them question the nuances of heroism. Tenko went with a Raksha who acts like life itself was just a game, Katsuki went with the typical Dawn Solar, while Izuku went with a Chosen of Secrets, which was a surprise to Hisashi who thought his son would go with a Solar as well.

That campaign ended in a rather hilarious end of a local part of the world, the merger of Autochtonia, Creation, Yu Shan, and the Wyld, and Izuku becoming the king of the gods in the new world through a rather convoluted series of events from the beginning of the campaign to the end. Hisashi was very proud.

Next was a more experimental campaign of 11th Edition Shadowrun.

No actual overall plot other than a vague 'fix the world' at most.

It was one of the longest campaigns he ever GMed.

It was mostly because Hisashi played up the notion of unintended consequences to the boys. Every action has a reaction, and it was interesting to see how they would try to get away with whatever they were planning at the time.

The end of that campaign ended up with Izuku learning how to use said consequences in a cascading domino effect on the setting, making and breaking aspects of society to his preference.

The lessons were going well.

After that campaign, Izuku invited a new friend of his he met in the park, a young girl by the name of Toga Himiko.

7th Edition World of Darkness made for an interesting game given how Izuku went with an Iteration X operative, Katsuki went with a Storm Lord werewolf, Tenko went with an Autumn Court Darkling, and Toga went with a Daeva Carthian.

It was a more of a character focused campaign. It's a mark of good leadership to not only keep group morale high but managing to maintain group cohesion especially when the group is filled with a myriad of personalities and skills.

It was at that period when Hisashi decided to teach his son how to act and disguise himself. The disguising lessons turned out to be rather unnecessary given how Izuku happily joined in some makeup sessions with Toga, sometimes on Tenko.

The acting lessons were much more fun, partly hiding it as a game.

He already told his son the story of a famous actress who managed to hide herself when she gave a public interview with nothing but body language and when the interviewer was surprised no one noticed, she changed her body language and everyone noticed her, said actress was Norma Jeane Mortenson, popularly known as Marilyn Monroe.

The warehouse they went into to train was one of his spare warehouses under layers of subsidiaries and pseudonyms.

"Now son, we're going to practice method acting. It's quite useful since sometimes need to truly think that you're another person."

"Toga told me about it. She told me her papa's teaching her how to play with big boys. She said it wasn't very fun but she gets to lick on the blood so she's happy."

Hisashi kept that rage and disgust to himself, until he could have the Toga family get a background check. Maybe with his wife ready with the lawsuit, just in case.

"Now, let's focus on a character you need to act out and we could play it out."

"What about you papa?"

Hisashi grinned.

"Why, I'll be the scary villain. Now, let me get into position. Remember Izuku, the majority of information given out isn't in speech, not the tone, not the words, no, it's in the body language. The right posture, the right mannerisms, the right gait and movement will tell people if one's a hero, a villain, a bystander, and more."

Hisashi then showed off some character archetypes he mastered in the centuries.

He crouched forward, hugged himself, messed his hair a bit, gave the appearance of a timid and weak nerd just missing the glasses and wearing a suit that doesn't seem to fit him.

"I-I'm s-sorry sir! P-please excuse me. I-I got w-work to do." his voice even sounded timid and an octave higher. The defenseless civilian archetype was useful in escapes and making people ignore him. After all, he screamed weak and defenseless, someone to ignore.

Hisashi then stood straight. His grin turned into a smirk. His eyes narrowed. He fixed his hair into combed slick. He walked forward at his son, showing off a confident yet casual movement, completely unlike the bumbling and clumsy look he was doing a moment before. He gave off the air of someone one shouldn't mess with.

"Ah, Mr. Winchester." Hisashi said in a deep and menacing tone, "I have read the corporate reports for your department and I noticed some errors in the accounts. It is… unfortunate to see such a loyal employee going against the company. I will help fix that." the villainous boss archetype was useful in intimidation and putting people in line.

"And now, one last example." Hisashi said as he went back to the starting position. He walked ahead with a swaying gait. His posture and movements feminine. When he stopped at the spot, he took a strange pose.

"Well hello boys~. Care to give a gal a good night?" Hisashi said in the tone of a guy in drag sounding rather seductive feminine way. And making it work.

Izuku stared at the last one, not sure whether to laugh or be grossed out at the idea of his father acting out the last archetype outside the house.

"... I'm telling mom for child abuse." Izuku said in a dull tone.

Hisashi dropped the act instantly.

"Now, now, Izuku, that was just an example of a character to pretend as."

"So, you showed me a scared guy, a mean boss, and someone who's pushing LGBT rights back by a hundred and so years?" well, Izuku is definitely his son with that comment.

"You would be surprised at how easy it is to hide from people in a dress and makeup-" Izuku then covered his ears.

"La la la! I can't hear ya! La la la! I'm not imagining my dad as a drag queen! La la la!"

Hisashi blushed and coughed from that as he let his son quiet down.

"You done?"

Izuku nodded.

"I am telling mom though."

"Please, your mother managed to find enough blackmail of me in drag and other outfits across the years when we were dating."

Izuku made an increasingly high pitched whine of terror from the idea.

Hisashi rubbed his forehead, realizing what he just said.

"And Izuku.exe has stopped working…"

Hisashi just gave his son a bottle of cold water to drink when he ended up choking a bit.

"Feeling better now?" Hisashi asked, to which his son just nodded while he drank his water.

Then the doors of the warehouse opened. A group of men and women entered the warehouse. One of them was a teen with a surgical mask.

Hisashi gave off his aura as he carried his son on his arms.

"You do realize you're trespassing on private property." He stated.

The leader of the group did a ninety degree bow at Hisashi, which his group followed, before very humbly apologizing to the Underground Shogun for the intrusion.

"Master, why are we bowing to him?" the teen wearing the surgical mask asked.

"Be careful what you're saying Kai, this is the Immortal Satou, the Underground Shogun. He's the reason why underground heroes call themselves that. He might have control over Kyoto, the Ise Shrine, and the surrounding areas but he was around for centuries. He has the imperial family under his thumb." the leader whispered at his protegee.

"More like saved them the trouble from two different general idiots who wanted to start a coup and make themselves shogun and ruin the country with their plans." Hisashi muttered in annoyance as he placed his son down. Izuku's eyes looked at the group widely. Hisashi feared what he's thinking already. That and what he might tell his mother.

It's one thing for a kid to stumble into a voice chat meeting with some board members, another for a kid to end up in an impromptu yakuza meeting.

Hisashi shifted his posture, strengthening his malevolent aura to the point that everyone in the group froze in utter fear and terror.

"Now, tell me why you lot decided to trespass on private property?"

"Immortal Satou, we wish for a private audience with you." the leader said with a clap of his hands in prayer at Hisashi.

"Normally I would give my distaste at fools who believe themselves to be important enough to ignore the proper channels. Fortunately for lot, I have a child with me and traumatizing them is not something I can afford to do."

"B-but we did went through the proper channels, we were told to meet you here…" the leader's face paled at the realization. "W-we've been set up…"

Hisashi looked around, using his myriad of subtle sensing quirks. Nothing except one rather familiar quirk which he might deal with later.

"Well, there's no one outside, no one above us, no one below, none invisible, and none watching and listening through electronic devices." Izuku said with a grin and an octave higher his usual tone. Like a curious and annoying kid to ignore. The complete change in tone made Hisashi weaken the terrifying aura, letting the group breathe properly from the fear.

"And how do you know that kid?" one of the underlings asked.

Izuku tilted his head like he was thinking.

"No one bursting in to arrest us, no buzzing of a drone, nothing, and Master Satou and I were in here for a few hours now and we're still okay." Hisashi looked at his son carefully, wondering if his father-in-law somehow possessed his son or something. Izuku's posture and body language really does gave out a feel of an annoying kid to ignore.

"Hi, I'm Akatani Mikumo! I have an analysis quirk." Inko's supposed maiden name and his choice for his son's name if it wasn't for the result of the coin flip.

"Interesting…" one of the underlings muttered as the group seemed to have relaxed a bit.

"Perhaps there was some mix up in the communications?" the leader suggested.

"Perhaps…" Hisashi said as he coughed at his son, making him turned his head at him, before signing 'be careful and stay safe'.

Izuku mischievously grinned and signed back an 'okay'.

"Don't hurt even a single hair on the kid's head, got it." the leader whispered at his subordinates. They silently nodded.

Izuku then ran towards the group while Hisashi and the boss ended up having a private chat. He looked and observed the group carefully. Some of them looked uncomfortable from being watched by what they thought to be the successor to the Immortal Satou.

"Hey mister," Izuku said to the teen with the surgical mask, "You must be really worried about your health with that mask on."

The teen stayed silent as he looked at Izuku.

"Hey, hey, don't you know that before quirks were around ninety percent of all humans alive at the time were infected with at least eight different types of herpes? I remember watching a really old video talking about how space travel made astronauts show symptoms of some form of herpes since space made their immune system weaker. I don't know what the percentage of that is for now but isn't that interesting?"

The teen looked at Izuku with slow widening eyes of horror, perhaps with some twitching of an eye or three.

"I-it is interesting… it would be nice to see a world without such illnesses, a properly clean world."

Izuku giggled.

"That's silly, mister." the other underlings began to sweat at the sight of the two chatting, knowing that the boss's protegee was touchy and very outspoken on the subject.

"Illnesses help make the body stronger. After all, we made cities clean and sterile and it only resulted in worse epidemics due to the immune system being weak. Not to mention the whole anti-vaxxers becoming popular before a lab that kept the remaining stores of smallpox exploded, releasing it into the world again so many decades ago."

"... you are one deceptively knowledgeable child, you know that."

"Master Satou taught me many things." Izuku whispered in a slightly lower tone with a grin. "Like history and reading people…"

"Tell me kid… do you have an idea on how to lead a group secretly? Away from prying eyes?"

Izuku tilted his head in thought.

"Well, hiding it plain sight, using guerrilla tactics, and going for ways that aren't obvious. It's rather basic."

"... humor me. What do you think of quirks, besides the obvious."

Izuku's eyes lit up.

"They're amazing! So many powers and abilities people didn't have before and they now have…"

"Don't you think it's an illness in need of a cure?"

Izuku looked at the teen in confusion before chuckling. He looked up at the teen with narrowed eyes.

"That's silly, mister. It's not an illness. It's a power, something given to humanity by a single serpent, a fruit forbidden and eaten. We are banished from the garden of ignorance. One cannot return to the garden now. Try to cure it, someone will try to get it back. Power is power. Try to take it away, you will fail. Humanity's grip on what it desires is strong. Sure, there would be those who would want to let go, only for them to be swept away, to be left behind, to become powerless. They will no longer have a hand in the guidance of humanity and the world. Such is the nature of the games of power." Izuku said in a monotone as everyone in the group looked at him in shock.

"Well then mystery child… what do you think caused quirks?"

"Simple, I think it was nanobots."

"Nanobots. Those were made at least decades after quirks appeared."

Izuku chuckled.

"Not if you cheated."

The teen would have said something before Hisashi and the leader returned.

"Thank you for helping my group, sir." the leader said with a bow. He gestured at the group to leave while Izuku giggled and ran to his father.

"Bye bye!" Izuku waved at the group.

The group then left after they gave a bow.

Izuku looked up at his father.

"Acting's fun!" he said in his normal voice before he pouted. "You shouldn't hire actors for the lessons papa. They're expensive."

"Uh, right, actors. Who were you acting then son?"

"The creepy know it all kid with an analysis quirk."

"Oh? You were really good acting that then."

"I watched some scary movies with Tenko." Izuku said with a yawn.

Hisashi grinned as he ruffled his son's hair.

"What sort of movies?" Hisashi asked as he called Kurogiri, signaling him to come bring Izuku home.

"The old scary movies… one with the girls in the hotel…" Izuku said as he got sleepy. "The ones with the clown…" Izuku closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Hisashi then carried Izuku to Kurogiri as he warped into the warehouse.

Once they left, Hisashi stood straight.

"We're alone. You can come out of hiding now."

A man in a suit left the shadows and into the light.

The man has smooth porcelain white skin with no features, wearing a simple suit.

Hisashi looked at the man in confusion.

"... Slenderman?"

The man chuckled.

"No, Mr. Slender's my father." the man said in a joking tone before he shifted into a copy of Hisashi. "I'm Doppel, underground hero. I apologize for dragging the yakuza along but I heard about you and I need your help. I'm Toga Himiko's uncle." the underground hero said in Hisashi's voice.

"That explains the quirk."

"Yes… well, I'm worried about my niece. I have evidence that my brother is training her to be a shapeshifting assassin and possibly sexually abusing her. The problem is that my brother's also a shapeshifter so he would be able to pin the blame on me instead. I know you deal with favors, please, she needs therapy and to get away from her father."

Hisashi made a revolted look as he pulled out his phone and called someone on speakerphone.

"Wait for a moment, and can you speak with your normal voice?" Doppel nodded, "Let's take a seat in a more private room. And repeat what you just told me…"

As Inko learned of what was happened, she decided to skip the legalities.

And added a bonus of the Midoriya family paying for both the legal custody transfer and Himiko's therapy.

Because Mr. Toga crossed lines that Inko will not forgive.

Hisashi always knew she was the better actor, especially when it came to subtlety.

------------

Technically, the full name was the Immortal Satori then it got shorten to the Immortal Sato then it morphed into the Immortal Satou. That part is a bit more blatant in copying the Way of the House Husband manga.

Personally, Toga's character came off as someone made to train to be an assassin from a young age because of her quirk and was abused in childhood to develop her warped view of love and romance.

The 'astronauts gets herpes in space and 90% of humanity has herpes' was a thing I thrown in cause it's perfect to freak out a germaphobe like Chisaki. Here's the link to the video
 
Ones & Zeroes
Hisashi washed his hands after dealing with that troublesome individual.

Only an act of the divine would manage to protect someone from his wife's complete fury. It was a rare sight to see his wife gave off such a murderous aura, especially when they found more and more damming evidence of the man's crimes against women and children. Especially the late wife.

Mrs. Toga didn't realized her actual husband was murdered and replaced as the shapeshifter wanted to use her to get a child perfect for criminal and assassination training to bring back his group. Mrs. Toga was a young nurse with a Blood Analysis quirk, which helped in checking for anemia, insulin levels, and other blood related medical checkups. The remains of her body was found in a trash can, dated to be sometime after Himiko's fourth birthday. The sickening part was the monster draining her of her blood, cooked it into a stew, and gave it to her daughter while teaching her some twisted ideas of love.

Inko wanted to kill him on the spot herself.

But cooler heads prevailed, in the form of Hisashi granting the now quirkless man mercy under the tender care of Dr. Tsubasa.

Hisashi dried his hands and left the lab.

Doppel, for doing his part of the bargain, gained custody of his niece, her paid therapy, an alibi, and a non disclosure agreement for everyone's sake.

"I must thank you again for all this." Doppel said as he drove the couple home in the form of some driver. Hisashi quickly realized something.

"Now I remember why your quirk looked familiar. Your family were the leading clan of the Ten Thousand Masks, or perhaps some distant relative. Infamous assassins that no one knew the actual membership. People just called you, killed someone or steal something, and frame some unfortunate individual with the crime."

"Well, that was something my grandfather, who called himself Noppera-bou, wanted to continue. The secrecy and killing, but my father and uncles hated that. Some rebelled against it and the group practically ended without fanfare. My uncle became the pro hero Mannequin before he retired to his fashion company and gave the hero agency to his protegee Best Jeanist. My other uncle left to America and became a civil right's activist and lawyer there. My father, on the other hand, is a mess. He's a famous actor and fashion model so he's in trouble for sexual harassment and running away from his many flings that resulted in children. I only stumbled on what my brother was doing in complete accident. I went from working as a professional body double to a semi-legal detective and bounty hunter almost instantly."

"Semi-legal detective?" Inko asked.

"I might have gathered evidence with my shapeshifting through not entirely legal means." Doppel muttered.

"Ah, I see. If you want, I can help you with that."

"T-thank you but you've done so much for me and Himiko already."

Inko gave him her card either way.

They soon arrived back home and saw Tenko and Izuku testing out Tenko's newest mod for Minecraft. Some silly nonsense about magic.

Hisashi remembered how Tenko's programming skills started like it was yesterday.

It was during his electronics and computer programming phase.

Hisashi did got in trouble from his wife for building another extension of the basement and having another layer of it built.

Sometimes, he wondered if his tendency to hoard quirks had spread to other things during his time as a house husband.

He was practicing his programming, that he remembered. A simple bot to quietly hack into organizational databases, usually government, for later reading.

After all, it was years since Hisashi gave a copy to the Foundation and they haven't even sent a letter why they haven't replied yet.

As the time passed, the more his paranoia crept up on him, despite the Foundation's influence in the country was under his control. He held the power to kick them out and buy back the locations they were using in the country easily.

Of course, Hisashi reminded himself, that was only a formality given how the Foundation was organized. There would be cells spread out doing their own thing and it would be a bother to clean them all up.

Then again, it made sense for something Samuel Cole Peterson founded to follow a rather anarchic organizational policy. Hisashi still remembered those years in college where he had to listen to Peterson's philosophical rants and conspiracy theories. Funny that one sarcastic yell to write down his rants and publish them resulted in Peterson becoming a philosophical cornerstone and a paradigm shift in philosophy and culture.

He was shaken from his thoughts when young Tenko entered his home office.

"Dad… mom said it's time for dinner…"

Curious at the contents of the usually locked room, Tenko walked to the computer.

"Whatcha doing anyway?"

"Programming."

"Oh?" Tenko looked at the lines of difficult code on the screen, "Looks complicated."

"I can teach you the basics. I remember some old game mods I used to do."

"Oh?" Tenko asked with interest and curiosity at the idea. "You can do that?"

"Of course. Think of game modifications as a sort of practice. You would be able to make your own games in no time if you keep practicing."

And practice he did. Starting small and slowly going up the difficulty. In fact, Tenko ended up on top on his computer programming electives in middle school.

Though his choice of high school was still undecided.

"Izuku, please tell me you didn't experimented on the Corruption magic…" Tenko called out as the brothers played their game. Curious, Hisashi used a See-Through-Barriers quirk to see a Minecraft world being corrupted by some purple things around a red pentagram in a circle on the grass.

Hisashi lost track on the updates to that game centuries ago but he wasn't surprised that it was still being updated. It was basically the Lego of video games.

"S-sorry! I thought I can control it!" Izuku cried as he watched his base being corrupted in the game while Inko opened the door.

"We're home!" Inko called out.

"Hey mom! Well, looks like we're gonna spam the purifying flowers, again." Tenko muttered as they paused the game before they went to hug their parents. "Well, at least we know how bad I coded the speed of the spread there. That's too fast."

"Looks like you two had fun." Hisashi said as he watched his son crying at he screen, watching his farm animals turning into corrupted purple things.

"Well, anyone in a mood for some pizza? I know dear, but it's late and we forgot to buy groceries so it's takeout night." Inko said as the family then picked what they wanted, some pizza toppings and some chicken salad for the slight push towards a more healthy diet.

To pass the time, Hisashi went to his home office to plan a way to get answers from the silent Foundation.

As he brooded, he was reminded of the number of times his dear wife nagged him for being dramatic again when a simple solution would had been preferable, especially for the marriage anniversary.

Let the records shown that Midoriya Hisashi was within legal rights for his actions in the purchase of a few cuts of Kobe beef, a bluefin tuna, some cubic Yubari watermelons, a sack of Kinmemai rice, a small sack of Da-Hong Pao tea leaves, a small sack of Kopi Luwak coffee beans, and a personal reservation in the Japanese Imperial Palace in Kyoto with a certain Honda Kiku.

Whom Hisashi was well acquainted with and thus would theoretically be useful as a character witness. Though Hisashi wouldn't dare make the Kami of Japan do such a petty thing. He has proper logical standards to uphold after all.

Still, Plan A was basically warping into the Japanese branch and demand for answers, then destroy the place and the surrounding area if they won't give him what he wanted.

But, Hisashi reminded himself, simple plans, nothing dramatic.

Plan G was probably good enough for his wife to accept, if she found out about it. Then again, she would notice if he decided to bring a meal or two down to the basement.

"Dad?"

Plan T would be good. A simple hack into one of their companies and instigate a false alarm then use that to get the answers. But it would require a lot of energy and Inko would notice the disparity in the electric bill.

"Dad."

Plan XR would be a even simpler. Call in a favor to make a Yakuza group attack one of the companies and use them as a cover to break in and get the answers-

"DAD!"

That woke Hisashi up from his thoughts.

Tenko was by the door with his arms crossed.

"I was going to tell you that the food's here but now I'm wondering what you're muttering about and if I should tell mom you're going to commit a crime, again."

"No, not a crime, just wondering how to get answers from a rather secretive group." Tenko rolled his eyes.

"Like what, the Illuminati?"

"As if I would be caught dead trying to join with those wannabe puppet masters I've dealt already with." Hisashi muttered. "No, the Samuel Cole Peterson Foundation."

"... You want to break into a humanitarian organization for answers." Tenko said with disbelief dripping from his tone.

"I asked them to do something for me and they hadn't replied in years."

"Have you tried calling them?"

Hisashi thought about it for a moment.

"... Seriously dad? You were planning of breaking into their headquarters and not once did you think of just calling someone in the organization?" Tenko rubbed his forehead. "And now I know where Izuku got his planning skills from."

"What can I say? Old habits die hard."

"Well, you better hope those old habits crash and burn then, Hisashi." Inko said as she took a step forward to place herself in front of the door. "Now let's go down and we'll have a nice discussion, as a family, about the importance of simplicity, cause it turns out Izuku inherited the Midoriya family tendency for the dramatic."

Tenko winced at that.

"Y-you noticed mom?"

"Dear, I work in Hero Law. I heard more than one hero talking about a green haired kid with a notebook at hero fights and crime scenes."

Hisashi winced at the thought.

"And you know the saying. Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, and thrice is a conspiracy." Inko took a step back to let the two walked ahead.

Tenko and Hisashi went down the stairs to the dinning room to see Izuku tearing on his seat with the food on the table.

The family took their seats and begun eating their chicken salad first.

"So, Izuku has been stalking hero fights around and a hero thought it was suspicious at how he managed to go from hero fight to hero fight quickly and writing down on his notebooks in that code of his." Inko began.

"I got to meet an underground hero at least." Izuku muttered.

"Yeah, and you got yourself dragged home by the hero because of it." Tenko added. Izuku looked at him in shock from the betrayal. "Hey, don't look at me like that, mom figured it out on her own."

"And you both decided to cover that up by looking like you were playing Minecraft the whole time we were out?" Hisashi added.

"I really did need to test the coding I did for the mod. But Izuku wanted to make it look like he was doing something. Also, his analysis notebook got confiscated by the hero."

Inko hummed at that in thought.

"Dear, it would be hypocritical to plan out a law suit for a search and seizure without a warrant when you're telling us to not be dramatic about it."

"There's a difference between a making a threat and going through with it. Also, a difference between doing things in the proper channels and just bulldozing everything when you don't get your way." Inko countered.

"Well, in other news," Tenko said, hoping to change topics, "I've decided to go to UA for high school." Izuku's eyes lit up at the news.

"What. I thought you didn't want to be a hero." Hisashi said.

"I don't. I'm thinking of taking the Support Course to help in my programming skills. I'm pretty sure Izuku supports that."

Izuku nodded with a grin.

"U.A., formally known as Ultima Academia, was founded in 2033 as a certified international school with three major courses, General Education, Business and Management, and STEM, usually called Science and Technology. The Heroics course was added when the school decided to be the first hero school in the country when the martial law government imported the hero system from America and it's one of the top high schools in the country for all four courses-" Izuku babbled out.

"Remember to breath and drink some water, Izuku." Inko interrupted.

Izuku stopped himself and took a sip.

"Well, the problem is that the business and tech courses are Hero Management and Hero Support courses now." Hisashi added.

"Technically, only one management and one support class are focused on doing stuff for heroes, and there are two hero classes, three support classes, three management classes, and five general education classes per year level with roughly twenty students each class." Izuku added.

"How much UA stuff did you read? Cause I feel like I should add critical reading and comprehension if you just accept the propaganda without question." Hisashi said.

"I'm sure you both have plenty of time to do that since you're both grounded. You, Hisashi, are under house arrest and with limited communications to your friends. The last thing we want is a false alarm at the police station and hero agencies. Remember that incident at Kyoto?"

Technically, as the Shogun of Japan, Hisashi did have the right to visit the Imperial Family in certain occasions, old helmet notwithstanding.

"And Izuku, you go straight home after school, no side tracks, no scenic routes, no visiting of crime scenes and battles, if one where to happen, leave immediately, but you are allowed to go with your friends if you decide to do something as long as you tell us about it."

Izuku sighed.

"Yes mom…"

"Good we have this talk." Inko said as she opened the pizza box for a slice.

The rest of the dinner was simple banter among the family. Tenko's video game review channel was picking up on popularity, Izuku topping his classes, Inko complaining about an American prosecutor by the name of Edgeworth who managed to put what she thought to be an innocent man in prison, and Hisashi talked about a new hobby he was picking up.

Sewing and costume design sounded like fun to him.

"Hope we won't find ourselves with another basement full of clothes and fabrics. If that happens I can and will put up a yard sale, again." Inko said as she placed the remaining pizza and soda in the fridge. "Honestly Hisashi, at the rate of your hoarding, we might end up breaking zoning laws for the number of basements we already have."

"I did make sure to sell what I made. The hydroponic greenhouse is growing the whole neighborhood's herbs, spices, and vegetables. I can imagine selling the costumes and outfits."

Inko made a soft smile.

"Planning of making Izuku's hero outfit then?"

"Now what gave you that idea?" Hisashi replied as Izuku's eyes lit up at the idea of designing his future hero costume.

"You make it sound like it's a given that he'll end up in the hero course. Izuku's quirk doesn't exactly scream hero material." Tenko commented.

"T-Tenko!" Izuku whined, "I will get into UA and be a hero, flashy quirk or not."

"Now, now Izuku, it's getting late and you have class tomorrow." Hisashi said.

"Night then." Izuku said as he went to his room.

When Inko was far enough, Hisashi walked to Tenko.

"Come to the home office. I need help with some software issues." Hisashi calmly said.

Of course, Tenko knew exactly what he meant by that.

The two headed upstairs and locked the door.

"So… got trouble with the newest update of your operating system or do I have to scrub the internet of some embarrassing photo again?"

Tenko took a sip of his mug full of soda.

"I want you to hack into the Samuel Cole Peterson Foundation communication channels."

Tenko choked on his soda.

Turned out that Tenko misjudged on what he thought what Hisashi meant by 'software issues'.

Apparently, it included illegal digital activities.

"Dad. No. I am not going to hack into what's likely to be an AI watched network and end up on some secret listing somewhere."

"It's the Peterson Foundation, of course everything electronic they have is watched by a number of non-sentient and non-sapient AI like hawks." Hisashi said in an annoyed tone.

Tenko's eyes just widen.

"And you want me to hack into that minefield?"

"How else am I going to talk directly to those in charge?"

Tenko looked at his father. He then rubbed his forehead.

"Dad. I'm pretty sure you lived through the age of the smartphone, not the age of steam. Just call them properly on some hotline." Tenko noticed Hisashi opening his mouth. "And no, I'm not going to hack into their network as a Plan B."

Tenko unlocked the door and was about to leave the room.

"You hack into government archives and hero agency channels for Izuku, why not for your father?" Hisashi asked in a clear tone.

Tenko locked the door.

"You knew that?"

"As my father-in-law's favorite detective would say, 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, even the improbable, must be the truth.' or something like that. Izuku needs someway to keep track of hero and villain activities. You made yourself to be an expert in programming, even more so than me but that's due to my distrust of AI. Not to mention that, once being the overprotective brother who used to keep track on a wannabe vigilante of a younger brother, I might have went a bit overboard on checking on you and Izuku."

Tenko turned around to look at Hisashi with one brow raised.

"Really. Let me guess, trackers on our phones? In our clothes? Chips in our bodies?"

"We are going off topic here."

"Why? Afraid mom would ground you even more?"

"She would likely ban you from electronics if she found out about your hobby of checking into secret government databases."

"It's not a hobby… it's research."

"Into what, exactly?"

Tenko sighed.

"What exactly happened to my biological family. I didn't want to make mom and Izuku know what I was really doing on my computer, hence the whole game mods development and the programs for Izuku's hero stalking and quirk analysis."

"Wasn't that on the news online somewhere? A villain fought against a hero and caused a massive fire that destroyed a chunk of Fuyuki City?"

"That's what the media put on the news but it's just that, broad and vague."

Tenko looked away, at a family photo hanging on the home office wall.

"It's a deep seated trauma so I really can't forget that night. I lived with my older sister, my parents, and my grandparents." Tears began to fall down Tenko's cheeks, "I vaguely remembered them by now. But they all were trying to make me happy and calm, enough that I managed to control my quirk to held my sister's hand. My mom telling me to stop itching my neck..." Tenko's hands shook a bit, "But that night was still clear in my mind. It was raining heavily. My family was watching the news about the villain Gasoline, who could turn water into gasoline, fighting against the first responding heroes. I remember something about him being one of those Heatwave like cultists. Well, he went suicide bomber in the end at the oil refinery."

Tenko wiped his face dry.

"Thing is, no one said what caused the fire. The house caught a flame in a few minutes. The whole neighborhood was burning."

Tenko's eyes went unfocused and his voice dulled.

"It was hot, despite the rain. The explosion of the refinery made everyone deaf for a while. I tried to get my sister who was sleeping at her room but dad told me to run out first. I tried to get my grandparents but mom told me to go ahead. She'll get them out. I ran to the front door with my father carrying my sister, still asleep or passed out from the smoke I don't know. Then the ceiling of the house collapsed and dad pushed me out of the way. I saw my sister's head get crushed by a large piece of burning rubble. She should have survived with me… she was almost out…"

Hisashi simply went to comfort his son with a hug. He made sure the sound proofing and quirk negation quirks were activated, just in case.

"Let it out. Sometimes a good scream is all we need."

Tenko screamed and sobbed.

Hisashi waited until the crying stopped.

"Should we call the therapist for a session? I know how this will go. The quest for revenge, for retribution, for justice. It breaks the person either way, big or small. They become obsessed with it, keep pushing themselves for it, until they lose sight of what they were doing." Hisashi calmly said as he let go.

"Let me guess. You saw people fall into that in your really long life?"

"Much worse really. I fell into that trap. After my brother died, I sort of got lost in anger for a couple of years, going too far into my work, finding out what really happened, stopping idiots from taking over the country, until the rage fizzled out. Then it became a sort of routine in dealing with the usual pests until I met Inko and finally starting to rebuild myself again."

Tenko chuckled after a moment.

"It's funny. I kept this all to myself for years and now I'm spilling it all out just like that."

"It's a quirk of communication really. Ask the leading but truthful questions, gently guide them through the issues while being a good listener, even look nice and friendly, then they'll just tell you everything you want."

Tenko rolled his eyes.

"Wow. You can make being an understanding person sound like some Machiavellian ploy."

"I deal with the media and corporate interests, if you don't get your image right and control people's perceptions about you, you're dead meat in the business."

"Thank heavens I'm not taking that career path then."

"I can help you with your search you know. I practically own eighty percent of the country's media industry."

"That's the problem though. Adopted son of the mysterious immortal media baron looking up the news about some forgotten villain attack? Someone or something will put them together somewhere."

"That's cute. Thinking that something didn't already knew what you were doing."

Tenko looked at Hisashi with annoyance.

"You are not making me paranoid about the Hexadecimal or AI in general. Besides, it's getting late. Call them properly and not have a tantrum when you don't get your way dad. Still, no fair on using your bard proficiency to make me spill out my dark and brooding backstory that quickly."

"What can I say, rolled a natural twenty on my charisma check."

Tenko chuckled.

"Well, night dad." Tenko said as he exited the home office and headed to his room.

Hisashi sighed.

"Really hope they're not falling into the same mistakes my brother and I did. Maybe a family movie night? The Tale of Beren and Luthien? No… that's more Inko's kind of movie. Maybe a Doctor Who movie, the twenty first Doctor ones were good, morally complex, and hopefully push them away from that binary moral insanity that gripped my brother." Hisashi muttered to himself before he closed the door and went to the phone for a personal call.

He sighed as he remembered the number.

He hadn't used it in centuries.

He wondered if it still worked.

"Hello, this is the Samuel Cole Peterson Foundation hotline, Sophia speaking." a rather friendly, if nasal, voice answered the phone. Hisashi wondered if it was one of the many automated systems or an AI with a voice synthesizer in place. It's been centuries since the call centers were automated away after all.

"Yes, I wish to speak to Omega Thirteen. I'm afraid it's rather important."

"I'm sorry sir but there is no one with that name in the organizational listing."

"Really? But Athos wants to warn them about their fatty acid build up."

"... patching you through sir…"

Hisashi stayed silent for a moment as the phone began ringing. He continued on the thirteenth ring.

"All for one and one for all. United we stand, divided we fall."

A ding.

"Good evening Agent Athos. It has been a century or two since you called us."

"I seem to recall sending a package to your group on I-Island a few years ago. And yet I don't have the results of that package sent back to me."

"... Yes. We know of the results of that set of tests from our researchers. The debate went all the way up to the council. Ultimately, we were unsure how to proceed beyond simple observation."

Hisashi gripped the arm of his chair.

"This is my son we are talking about. If the Omega Council thinks there's something wrong, then there is something wrong. I know what and who you are, an amoral puppet master, imagine the distrust it would cause to the Foundation if people learn who or what sits in its board of directors."

"Going straight to threats now Athos?"

"It's not that hard to ferment fear and distrust against your kind. You already made it easier with your group's total control over the small islands and those flocks of cultists going to them after signing away everything."

"You of all people know the reason for the secrecy. The enemy may be gone for centuries but the plans set into motion are working as it intended. You may think my iteration is nothing more than living chopped off tendrils of the enemy but the second iteration has no connection to that thing."

"Trust is a two way street Mastermind. I may trust the Foundation in keeping you on a leash but I do not trust you."

"Yet you go to me for this."

"You are a wild card, unfortunately. If the Council says no, it's a no. But you're designed to be a trickster, for some reason beyond me, so from you there's a chance to get the results."

The resulting silence unnerved Hisashi, for he knew how fast the thoughts of the being on the other side was.

"I'm going to paraphrase an old quote or some such but are you sure you want to know? The resulting package would be redacted and all that but since you're one of the hundred and eight groups supporting the Foundation, it would be kept to a minimal. It's just, when some things are known, it is difficult to make them unknown. Especially with your perfect memory."

"If I am willing to ignore it and stay in blissful denial like what my wife prefers, do you think I would even talk to you about this."

"No. Of course you don't. Very well. The package is being sent. Just remember that I warn you about this and that the Council is only thinking of humanity's interests at heart."

A click and the call ended.

Now all he had to do was wait.

Before he went to bed, Hisashi went to check on his kids.

Tenko fell asleep on his desk, his laptop running a coding program.

Izuku slept in his bed. Hisashi took a moment to read one of his quirk analysis notebooks. The fact that pen and paper was still in use in the current day and age still surprised him, though it is Japan he reminded himself. The countryside barely entered the twenty second century.

Izuku's drawing skill improved and the code dense and difficult to figure out, like it was written in another writing system entirely.

Hisashi hoped it wasn't an ominous sign, just childhood fun that would stop in due time.

He didn't wait for the results for long.

He was alone at home when it arrived.

His wife went to America to help some ace attorney friend of her's back from college.

Tenko and Izuku were at school at the time.

So Hisashi was alone to find an unmarked box addressed to him.

He was careful, did the basic scans.

Nothing dangerous.

He placed the box on the home office table and opened it slowly.

Inside was a stack of papers, blank and empty.

When he touched the first page, words form it. It faded when he let go.

"Clever. Biometric based e-paper." he felt the first page. "Feels exactly like paper. Cutting edge stuff then."

Hisashi looked at the first page properly.

Object of Interest-00001: Quirks

Threat Level: Case to Case Basis

Public Awareness: Normalized

Contingency Plan(s): FILTERED MASQUERADE, SOCIAL ADAPTATION, HUMANITY FIRST

Description:
OoI-00001 is a collection of sixty anomalous nucleotides, forty two known to the public with the remaining eighteen kept secret due to their destructive potential.

Research in medical archives suggests that the anomalous edits and additions into humanity's genome began in the summer of 2031 at the earliest. In only a few months, more than three fourths of all humans had their DNA altered through an unknown process. Medical technology was either unable to spot the resulting bumps caused by the new nucleotides or were hidden from view by the same process that made them. The changes were only noticed by a number of member organizations but were assumed to be technical errors at the time.

There is some consistency in the effects of the anomalous nucleotides. [-], biological, [-], [-], philosophical, psychological, and sociological research suggest a deep connection of the anomalous nucleotides to [-], [-], or [-]. More research is advised.

Side effects of OoI-00001 on society includes but not limited to:
- A widening unevenness and rising prices of health care, insurance, and other public services the further an individual is from the baseline human form.
- A noticeable increase of indifference and aggression of gene expressed individuals to individuals without OoI-00001.
- Abilities that counters known laws of nature, fueling in distrust on the scientific institution.
- [-] in areas high of gene expressed individuals.
- An increase of cult [-] in areas high of gene expressed individuals or performed by gene expressed individuals.
- Complete failure of blood transfusions, organ transplants, and similar procedures due to massive genetic differences between individuals.
- Attempts to 3D print organs, travel beyond the Earth's upper atmosphere, and synthesize stem cells, among other things, completely fail due to extra gene expressions, anomalous mutations of the host, breakdown of higher brain functions, and [-].
- Attempts to synthesize anomalous nucleotides fail due to their inherent instability.
- Theoretical human extinction within a generation due to vast genetic differences that should result in the inability to procreate.
- Psychological shifts in line to certain behaviors and personality traits because of a quirk, such as increasing hotheadedness for fire users.

The anomalous nucleotides are classified by their usual gene expression on the individual.


Alpha Class: Quirk Immune

Status: Observation, Protected

Only ten percent of the total human population in the eve of the twenty third century are considered Quirk Immune, also known as True Humans by the bioconservative faction and cells that continue plan HUMANITY FIRST. They do not have anomalous nucleotides in their DNA. How these individuals managed remains unknown.

HUMANITY FIRST was the first plan in place by the Omega Council in the defense of the human species. It was discontinued when the level of genetic alteration was discovered. The plan is not completely discontinued and a number of operations continue in the defense of the remaining Quirk Immune.

Because of their lack of anomalous nucleotides, Quirk Immune individuals are given excellent health care including 3D printed organs, synthetic blood transfusions, in vitro fertilization, and more under operation HIPPOCRATES hidden as part of public welfare initiatives.

Due to their dwindling population, a number of cells are becoming more and more preemptive in the defense and continuation of the Quirk Immune as part of the survival of the human species. Attempts of the Maui cell in gathering support for operation UTNAPISHTIM is a noticeable example. Other potential operations include GATTACA, MATRIX, and FALGSC.


Hisashi went to skip to the next classification.

Beta Class: Quirk Carrier

Status: Normalized

Ten percent of the total human population have the anomalous nucleotides but have not shown any unnatural gene expression. A child of a Quirk Carrier have a chance of developing a quirk.

As part of operations HUMANITY FIRST and FILTERED MASQUERADE, all Quirk Carrier individuals are placed under quirkless status and any attempts to segregate them from the Quirk Immune are to be hindered for the protection of the Quirk Immune.

As part of FILTERED MASQUERADE, all medical research, government, corporate, and major organization, are to be infiltrated and push away from developing and discovering certain knowledge and technology.


"That explains a lot." Hisashi muttered as he skipped to the next classification.

Delta Class: Aesthetic Deviation

Status: Normalized

Gene expressions that resulted in unnatural aesthetic physiological change from human baseline, such as hair color, skin color, eye color, etc.

SOCIAL ADAPTATION is used to help society adapt and normalize to the fact that more and more people have these changes and abilities. The results are mixed…


"Nothing important…"

Epsilon Class: Deviation from Base Human Form

Hisashi decided to skim over some pages, reading only the categories the Foundation made in the centuries of research.

He stopped near the end to a particular category.

Blackbody: Regulated

The ability to absorb radiation and convert it to neutrinos. Wielded by the hero Blackbody, brother of Thirteen. Used in clearing up Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi, Kovvada, Akkuyy, and Atucha Exclusion Zones of radiation.

Black Hole: Regulated

The ability to absorb objects like a black hole. Wielded by the hero Thirteen. Working as a rescue hero and teacher.

Decay: Observation

The ability to break down molecular bonds during periods of negative emotion. Agents in the Japanese quirk and genetic database altered its description to better control the ability.

Omega Class: Existential Warpers

Status: Hidden

These individuals have one or more of the forbidden eighteen nucleotides in their DNA. The unnatural gene expression made by these nucleotides results in abilities that can and will alter the very laws of nature.

FILTERED MASQUERADE is in place to maintain the survival of the human species. Should an Omega Class individual is shown in simulations to have an ability that is an existential risk to humanity, elimination is preferred. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is a common cover up explanation.


Dreamer: Eliminated

The ability to alter reality in one's dreams. Simulations shown that if left alive, the Dreamer's radius of effect would increase until it surrounds the planet in twenty years. This will result in an existential breakdown as reality becomes conformed to dream logic when Dreamer is asleep.

False Vacuum: Eliminated

The ability to be a living false vacuum, which will result in a vacuum decay and the resulting rewriting of the laws of physics. For the safety of humanity and of the universe, the pregnant mother was eliminated. Some money was anonymously sent to Blackbody and Thirteen's father by an agent.

Mathmagician: Eliminated

The ability to alter, control, and reorganize numbers itself. Eliminated before his fourth birthday. However, it is suggested that Mathmagician expressed his ability earlier than expected. A number was either removed or added into reality. More research is necessary and if shown that mathematics was altered in some way, operation CARRY THE ONE shall be activated.

Narration: Contained

The ability to alter reality based on the narrative the individual has vocalized. The Narrator is currently contained in a time loop surrounding his high school with a narrative in place to prevent possible escape. To maintain psychological stability, comedy scripts of varying genres are used within the time loop, particularly high school romantic comedies on the lead up to prom.

Normality: Observation

The ability to define what is normal in reality. Depending on the hypothesis, Normality could range from [-] to alter his surroundings to what he considers to be normal. Fortunately, Normality simply believes he has a strong regeneration quirk due to the actions of Foundation agents. Normality was made to witness a fake event with the Nishinomiya city mayor being awarded by an agent for having the lowest crime and villainy rates of the world. The sudden decrease in crime and villain attacks in the city was substantial. Continued maintenance of Normality's psychological health is a top priority. Operation FUN BRIGADE is advised to be continued beyond Normality's high school education.

Palette Shift: Eliminated

The ability to rearrange the colors of the electromagnetic spectrum. Simulations shown that only the location of the color on the electromagnetic spectrum is shifted, other factors such as photon energies remains unaltered. Analysis of Palette Shift's DNA shown a high likelihood of monochromatic vision. Palette Shift was eliminated soon after.

Hisashi kept reading the list of rather terrifying quirks before reaching the last one. As unfortunate as it was, he agreed with the Omega Council on the need to commit such actions for the survival of humanity if not the universe.

Then he noticed the last page.

For Omega Council eyes only

Zeta Class: Undetermined

A temporary designation for abilities outside known classifications.

Izuku Midoriya (Individual of Interest-77041. Code name pending): Undetermined

Son of former agent Athos (IoI-770) of the Musketeer cell. Genetic analysis suggests placing him on Quirk Immune but the anomalous DNA loop suggests Quirk Carrier.

Recent analysis of the DNA loop revealed all sixty anomalous nucleotides all bonded in such a way that stabilized their inherent instability. This shifted the debate between elimination, observation, and containment camps.


"What." Hisashi muttered in subdued rage at the very idea.

One noticeable quality, currently unknown if it is connected to the anomalous DNA loop, is the complete inability to predict Izuku Midoriya in every simulation and predictive analysis. Foundation analysts suggests a potential connection to [-] to account for this quality. The Hexadecimal expressed worry on the individual they stated to be blind to. This worry extends to a number of in-the-know individuals from other member organizations.

Classification and action shall remain undetermined as more research is necessary. If Izuku Midoriya is a threat, it is predicted that former agent Athos will attempt to neutralize the individual. Whether or not he will succeed remains inconclusive.

One worst case scenario is that Izuku Midoriya is [-] . If true, then we must prevent a Omega Class Harvest Scenario.


Don't say I didn't warn you. :Dc - O-13

Hisashi sighed as he rubbed his forehead.

"And now I remember why I wanted a vacation from all this nonsense."

He placed the papers back in the box and placed it in a hidden spot among his files and documents before returning to his chores.

Contingency plans were forming in his head already but for who he remained undecided.

---------------

This one's a surprisingly long chapter. Some exposition and perhaps dry explanations on the later part.

Doppel's father and uncles are based on the three Slender guys. The Mannequin is Trenderman. The one who went to America is Slender with a bit of Anonymous. The one who became a fashion model and actor is a more ok take on Sexual Offenderman. Toga's dad is a more disturbing take on the same character.

The list of food Hisashi bought to cook for his wedding anniversary is some of the most expensive food in the world.

The Silmarillion trilogy consists of the Silmarillion, the Tale of Beren and Luthien, and the Fall of Numenor and Gondolin.

The Samuel Cole Peterson Foundation is a combo of a number of Groups of Interests in the SCP universe and Firewall from Eclipse Phase. I know what the [REACTED] parts of the text really talk about in the original copy of mine but spoilers.

The name of each plan and operation the Foundation has is meaningful.

If I were to give a sort of tag line for this Foundation it would go like this.

Secure Humanity's Future.

Contain Threats to Humanity.

Protect Human Lives.

So they deal less with keeping normalcy and more on stopping existential risks.

The places Blackbody goes to are all actual locations of nuclear plants that's built or currently in construction.

Two of the Omega level quirk users are shout outs.

The Narrator from Monster Prom.

Some average guy in a high school brigade.

Also, O-13/Mastermind was made with code from hackers, 4chan, and Anonymous, which explains a lot.
 
Last edited:
Helicopter Parenting
Hisashi Midoriya

A few weeks passed when Hisashi received a package. He ordered it as a way to watch over Izuku. With his tablet, he connected it to the high tech drone. It silently buzzed as he ordered it to follow Izuku. He watched it went up into the air as Hisashi placed the tablet next to some fabric, sewing a shirt Izuku requested, a black and green shirt with the words 'FORMAL WEAR' in English on it.

The stress of the report addled him but he went to refocus on the little things, things that comforted him, like Izuku's odd sense of fashion. He did attempt to make Izuku wear a proper suit like him, but pushing some hundred year old fashion sense only ended up with a compromise with his wife.

Seeing Izuku wearing a suit vest as his usual formal wear was just adorable in Hisashi's opinion.

Meanwhile, Izuku went out with Toga and Katsuki to hang out at the mall.

Katsuki Bakugou

Katsuki knew he has to be in his best behavior when it's around Deku.

He did his research. Hisashi owned eighty percent of the country's media through nested subsidiaries, owning the majority stock, and direct ownership.

Why a man like him decided to settle down as a damn house husband was beyond him.

But he has an idea or two.

He may not be like Deku with his perfect memory and math skills but he managed to tie with him on perfect grades most of the time.

He used to think he got an intelligence quirk but Deku kept pointing out that there were people as smart as him before quirks came into the picture. And he knew he had a fucking point on that.

But he also knew there's something off about Deku.

Analysis notebooks written in code with drawings, and symbols aside, Deku acted like an oblivious idiot at times. That and his atrocious luck when it comes to avoiding villains and disasters. He got the most random urges and end up helping an old lady cross the street, rescuing a cat stuck on a tree, or even getting the backseat viewing of a robbery which he'll end up stopping with the most random manner possible.

Katsuki swore he saw Deku indirectly stopped a purse robber by accident while throwing paper airplanes into the air when they were younger.

No one else witnessed it. The plane landed on a woman's face as she was walking her dog, that made her dog ran off and made a guy with his ice cream tripped over, the purse robber then slipped on the ice cream scoop on the ground and knocked himself out.

Deku got in trouble for that and personally went to help in catching the dog.

And the sewer sludge incident was something everyone agreed not to mention again.

"We should go to this new eatery. They're selling Filipino cuisine there and I love this dish called di-nu-gu-an." Toga said the name of the dish slowly while eating her prepackaged lunch in a plastic box which consist of rice and some pork in a dark brown sauce. She raised a spoonful of sauce dipped rice.

"And what the fuck is that suppose to be?"

"Dinuguan, it's a stew made by cooking pig innards in its own blood." Deku answered without ever looking away from his analysis notebook as he analyzed a new person walking by.

Katsuki raised an eyebrow as he looked at Toga ate her lunch while moaning at the flavor.

"Of fucking course it has blood in it." he said in annoyance.

"It's a lot better than the black pudding from that English restaurant." Toga said after taking a sip of her soda.

"That's because the blood's a bit more fresh compared to the black pudding." Izuku commented.

"You're a lot more blood crazy ever since your piece of shit of a dad left."

Toga giggled.

"That's the thing Baku, I've always been blood crazy. Uncle and my therapist told me it's ok to be outspoken as long as I don't hurt people. And I love blood!" Toga exclaimed before she took her last bite and cleaned up.

Izuku chuckled.

"We should do a horror movie night then." Izuku suggested as the trio gotten up from their table.

"Horror movies doesn't scare me!"

"Of course they don't. You're a walking lit stick of dynamite!" Toga chuckled.

"Are you that blood crazy!?"

"Kacchan, Toga, just stop. We don't want to get banned from the mall."

Toga crossed her arms and pouted.

"Fine…"

The three soon wandered around the mall.

"Too bad we're going to different middle schools soon." Toga said sadly.

"We're not going away that far. We're still gonna be in the same city." Izuku pointed out as he wrote a line or two on his notebook.

"Yeah but I really hoped we could hang out more often. Not many people like to go near me since I came out on my preferences."

"You make it sound like you came out as a lesbian or something." Katsuki muttered. Toga just giggled at Katsuki.

"Well, I can turn into any form I want of either gender, if ya want Baku-kun." Toga sweetly said.

"Toga, remember what your uncle said." Izuku said.

"Right, right, papa's advice is bad advice." Toga said with a pout.

"Always remember that Himiko." a man said as he walked to the trio. Katsuki bristled in protective anger at the stranger as he stepped in front of Toga.

Izuku, on the other hand, just looked at the man and Katsuki knew he saw through whatever disguise the man had.

Izuku's eyes lit up in realization.

"Toga's uncle? Is that you?" he asked with a tilted head.

"You are one very perceptive child. Did anyone told you that?" the man said with a nod.

Katsuki stopped.

"Aww, I was hoping for more time with Zuku and Baku!" Toga whined and pouted.

"Maybe next time, you still got therapy sessions after all. You can go ahead to the car."

Toga and Deku ran off to the mall exit while Katsuki walked with the uncle.

Only thing he knew about Toga's uncle was that he got a shapeshifting quirk and that Deku's parents helped him get custody of Toga.

"Deku's dad had something to do with the disappearance of Toga's dad, didn't he?" Katsuki whispered.

The man thought about it for a moment.

"No," he replied, "More like both of his parents helped me in their own way. Funnily enough, the father was the one calling for mercy."

"... well fuck." Katsuki muttered as he was left to imagine how that happened.

Katsuki and Deku waved Toga goodbye as she and her uncle drove away.

"So, what now Deku?" Katsuki hoped it would be an uneventful day.

"Hmm, I heard there's a new All Might toy out at the collectable game store."

Deku then ran off to the direction of the game store.

Katsuki could sense that today was not gonna be an uneventful day.

Especially when Deku took a shortcut through a dark alleyway that Katsuki swore wasn't there the last time he was in the area.

???

It was darkness.

It was fear.

It was a Fear of the Dark.

It's other half radiated fear, delicious fear but such a fear was simply unfulfilling. Emotion from one's self, radiating from one's self, never nourished the beings like it.

And so it left it's other half as he slept.

It wandered the realms of thought and memory in a hunt for fear to peck and devour. It cared not for the nightmares such a hunt would cause. For it was a being of the Collective Id, of the base emotions of all life, and in such a state of primal hunger, it chewed and ate its fill.

Until it found a weak spot between the mental and the physical, and tore through.

It felt the mental screams of it's other half as he woke up and tried to bring back control.

He begged for restraint.

He begged for mercy.

He begged for control.

But it was fear.

Fear was an emotion.

Fear was an instinct.

Especially a Fear of the Dark.

And it was a lord of darkness and shadow in the gap between.

A predator waiting for suitable prey.

It already feasted on a few mortals that entered in its trap.

It's other half protected their unconscious forms from further ravaging.

He knew what would happen to those it overfed of their fear.

Some became utterly fearless, others completely fearful, both dangerous to themselves and others.

But it cared not.

For it was a Fear.

Let it's other half worried about the sleepers.

It hunted.

It prowled.

It feasted.

Two children entered its trap.

A familiar child of Light, of Flame and Storm.

It watched the child shouted and fought the darkness, bringing the hidden truths into light.

Let those of the Light followed their ideals. The truth were within the darkness and shadow before they were into the light.

And in its darkness, it saw a hidden truth.

A large solitary eye watched it in the shadows.

The eye lit in electronic green as it took the form of a symbol of itself. A broken circle with a line going down from the circle's gap.

It felt fear due to the eye and its unrelenting and analyzing stare, and thus it retreated into it's other half.

Darkness and shadow retreated, revealing an alleyway with two knocked out adults, it's other half, a child of Light, and where the eye once floated, a child writing on a notebook in wide eyes full of wonder.

Fumikage Tokoyami

Tokoyami felt Dark Shadow returned under his control. He sensed something impossible, fear, from a being of fear itself.

"Fucking birdbrain!?" the Bakugou shouted.

"Oh, hello Bakugou." Tokoyami commented.

"Kacchan, you knew each other?" the green child asked as he went to try to wake up the unconscious adults.

"He came around with his parents once or twice for my mom's poker game." Bakugou said as he went to help carry the two adults with it's other half helping them.

Already, Tokoyami planned the excuses and alibis. False news of a mysterious villain that knocked the two adults out and he used his quirk in self defense, he felt Dark Shadow's support on the idea, to his fear and shame.

"Well, I'm Midoriya Izuku." the green haired kid said as they heard the adults groaning awake.

"Tokoyami Fumikage."

"W-what happened?" the woman asked as she made herself stand up.

"We got trapped by a villain. I think they had a space warping quirk." Tokoyami said calmly. "We better get out of this alleyway."

The woman helped in carrying the man, still too dizzy to get up properly.

"You kids go ahead, but be careful." she said. The trio went ahead, only to find the police in the area placing police tape around the false alleyway entrance.

When the adults exited the alleyway, the alleyway melted away back into a blank wall.

Soon the two adults were rested by the ambulance to deal with potential trauma while a plain faced detective walked to the trio.

'A truth sensor.' Dark Shadow commented in Tokoyami's mind.

'That's gonna be trouble.' Tokoyami replied.

"Hi detective Tsukauchi!" Midoriya waved at the detective who simply sighed.

"You're going to give us grey hairs at this rate Midoriya."

"How did the police got here this quickly?"

"We got a call from your father about seeing you and Bakugou going through a wall."

Midoriya tilted his head in confusion as he looked up.

"Dad saw me? How- oh." a drone with a camera lowered down to their height. Izuku pouted. "Dad, really?" the drone moved up and down in a nod like manner.

"I'm starting to wonder if you have some trouble magnet quirk. What happened?"

"Well, Kacchan and I wanted to go to a game store to check out a new All Might toy there. I saw an alleyway and thought it made for a good shortcut and ran in. It suddenly got dark before the shadows disappeared and there was Tokoyami and the two unconscious adults. They said that there's a space warp going on and we tried to get everyone out. Luckily, the adults woke up and we managed to get out before the alleyway disappeared." Midoriya then continued to answer and ask questions to the detective and the drone.

There was a shift in tone, subtle but there. It gave the sound of innocence to his ears.

'Don't be fooled by the watcher's words.' Dark Shadow warned in his mind. 'He will try to come closer with his honeyed words.'

'Do I hear terror there Dark Shadow?'

'The eye I bore witness is both terrible and terrific, this I warn.'

"I'm telling mom you were spying on me, dad." Tokoyami heard Midoriya said as the drone floated in the air before it swiftly flew up and away.

After a few more minutes of answering questions, the trio were allowed to leave the scene.

"Hey Kacchan, Tokoyami, wanna go eat some ice cream?"

"I'm picking where we'll go this time Deku, or who the fuck knows will happen next." Bakugou muttered in annoyance.

"... this happens normally for you two?"

"No, Deku has a fucking sixth sense when it comes to trouble, either that or horrible luck."

"Well, dad gave and taught me how to use a butterfly knife in case of trouble." Midoriya then pulled out a flip knife from his bag and showed off a trick or two in using it before putting it back.

"Fucking, do you want to get in trouble with the police?" Bakugou tensely muttered at his friend. "No wonder blood girl likes you."

"W-what? Kacchan, we're just friends! Toga might not know what's normal for people to do but she's adapting well."

Bakugou rolled his eyes as the trio entered an ice cream store and bought ice cream. Tokoyami bought an extra one for Dark Shadow. It might not gain sustenance from it but it was the thought that counted.

He then felt the stare of clinical eyes piercing through him.

He turned to see Midoriya's eyes lit with wonder as he wrote down something on his notebook, watching Dark Shadow.

"That's your quirk? That's amazing! Is it some sort of living dark matter? Or maybe it's a swarm of nanobots? Is it sentient and sapient? Does it have its own consciousness separate from your own or is it a part of your mind or maybe it's more connected to your personal subconscious than that? Or perhaps-"

"Deku, give Birdbrain some fucking space."

"O-oh, s-sorry about that. I just love to analyze quirks and I tend to get carried away with it sometimes."

"Sometimes?" Bakugou muttered incredulously.

"Well, yes, this is my quirk. Dark Shadow, and he prefers to be called a he."

"Amazing, so he's self aware enough to have a gender identity and intelligent enough to understand the concept of gender."

Midoriya stopped his writing on his notebook and tilted his head.

"Though, Dark Shadow? Simple name. When I saw him, I found myself thinking of that old Poe poem, the Raven."

There was a growing tone of Authority in Midoriya's voice.

Tokoyami's eyes widen and he sensed Dark Shadow's horror as well.

"'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the Raven-
"

"I am curious what your quirk is, Midoriya." Tokoyami interrupted, waking him from his poetic daze.

"Oh, it's nothing flashy. Just an immortality quirk." Midoriya said with a slight blush of embarrassment. Tokoyami felt crimson eyes staring at him in silence.

"Really? That sounds interesting. Did you find anything special about it?" Dark Shadow added in the questioning.

That was a mistake as Midoriya's eyes turned to Dark Shadow, practically glowing in excitement.

"HE TALKS! Are you two like Gaia and Cybele of Amazonia? Are you going to merge into him one day and become one with the shadows just like how Deidre Skye became one with the living interconnected Amazon jungle gestalt being she helped grew in her rule as the queen of Amazonia?"

"Fucking… personal space shithead!" Bakugou shouted. That was went everyone else noticed that Midoriya got on the table to get closer to Tokoyami and Dark Shadow during his barrage of questioning.

Midoriya's head turned red in embarrassment and he returned to his seat.

"S-sorry. I just love to analyze quirks and all that. I hope that if I'm good enough, I might figure out how my quirk really works. Dad said it repairs my DNA for damages and that's it but I always feel like there's more to that." Midoriya then returned to his notebook, opened a page, and showed it to them.

It was written in thick gylphs that it seemed to blur together and slightly strained both Tokoyami and Dark Shadow's eyes. The page shown revealed an accurate if stylistic drawing of Tokoyami and Dark Shadow on the the side. On the upper corner was a symbol, a front view of a two faced raven, one side normal and the other shaded in darkness.

"This one's your page." Midoriya then flipped the notebook pages to one with a drawing of Bakugou. On it's upper corner was a symbol of a sweating fist with an explosion on the background.

"This one's Kacchan." Midoriya then flipped the pages once more. This time, the page was empty. Only some same lines and a symbol on the upper corner. The symbol itself was colored. It looked like a green inverted power symbol on a black sixteen sided shape.

"This one's mine. It's rather empty since I want to be certain about the details of my quirk before I write them down. I wasted a lot of paper in writing down my drafts for my page." Midoriya then turned his head at the window and pouted.

The rest turned to look and notice the same drone looked at them.

"Dad… really?"

"I guess that means it's time to go home, before your old man decides to call in Rockhead or Fartface to fetch you."

"Yeah…" Midoriya said as he packed up his stuff. "Well, it's nice meeting you, Tokoyami, Dark Shadow. Hope I can see you again soon." he said as he exited the ice cream store with a wave. "Uh, you coming Kacchan?"

"Eh, you go ahead. I'm gonna finish my ice cream here then actually go to that game store with the All Might toy." Bakugou said, which made Midoriya pouted.

"Lucky… well, see ya later Kacchan."

"See ya…" Bakugou waved back. The three watched Izuku talked to the drone before the two left.

Katsuki Bakugou

"So," Katsuki said at Birdbrain and his quirk. "What the fuck was that all about?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"The whole skittish thing around Deku. And why the fuck are you afraid for Deku to say Nevermore? His dad's like hundreds of years old so he ended up knowing about ancient poetry like it was nobody's business."

"Bakugou. How much do you know about your parents' history?"

"Eh, my parents were fucking high school sweethearts and mom was in some fucking magical girl themed gang. Mom got Leo at that time if I remember correctly, so it's like some thirty, forty year old cat by now. Pretty sure he got a quirk."

"So you're not initiated into the deeper mysteries?"

Katsuki just stared at Birdbrain and it just clicked. A fucking cultist wannabe or some shit like that.

"For fucks sake cut it out with that cult nonsense. I'm not buying whatever nonsense you were spoon fed by your dumbfucks of parents."

Tokoyami and Dark Shadow glared at Katsuki with the same look. He did not got scared. He did not felt fear and terror. And anyone who claimed otherwise were lying.

Tokoyami then stopped and sighed.

"I'm not asking for you to believe me, but understand me. There is something odd about Midoriya. He knew things that should be kept unknown and his voice spoke with heavy authority that should be impossible for those not initiated into the deeper mysteries of the world."

"Can ya simplify cause all I hear is Deku's weird, no shit, he knows things, no fucking kidding, and apparently you think he has something funny with his voice. I'm not surprised given how he managed to sing a fucking opera number some classmate of ours tried to prank him with. Something about some angry mom of the night shouting at her kid in German."

"Ah, Bakugou, is Midoriya around?" a man said, probably blood girl's Clayface of an uncle in another form, as he walked to the table.

Katsuki noticed the stare the three of them shared with each other.

"You know each other?"

"... I'm acquainted with their parents." Clayface said with a smile.

"Well, Deku went home with his dad's camera drone. We were talking about how weird Deku gets sometimes."

Clayface's smile turned fucking cryptic despite not changing at all.

"He does mutter about quirks a lot." he added.

"Eh, you get used to it after a while. It's fucking annoying than anything." Katsuki muttered.

"I am curious if Midoriya's one of yours. He gave a lordly air of power at times." Dark Shadow asked.

"No. He's not. I checked. He is a normal human but in many senses blocked from view, like a black hole." Clayface replied.

And it devolved into more cult nonsense in Katsuki's opinion.

"You know what, I'm going home." he said.

"May we meet again." Birdbrain said.

"Fuck off Birdbrain!"

Katsuki thought about it more, wondering what really freaked them out about Deku and wanting to punch the idiot who promoted all the cult talk and conspiracy theories into folk culture.

If it's one thing Katsuki hated more than people being direct idiots, it's people being passive aggressive and smarter-than-you idiots.

Hisashi Midoriya

Hisashi finished sewing the last of the T-Shirts Izuku wanted and placed it on a pile for his son to see. He just began cooking dinner when Izuku arrived.

"Afternoon son, I see the drone's chaperoned you home properly."

"Dad… did you have to get a drone to follow me around?"

"Of course I did. I am a worried father and you have a tendency to be around trouble."

"Mom was okay with me going to watch hero fights."

"At a certain distance, and only because you ended up in villain attacks instead." Hisashi said with a frown, calculating a way to clean up the crime in the city to protect his son.

Dr. Tsubasa might need more test subjects soon.

"It's either a camera drone or I'll get a full humanoid drone just to watch over you all the time." Hisashi added.

"Dad…" Izuku whined.

"It's for your own safety. Seriously, it's like dealing with my brother's luck, and he got a genetic illness to deal with as well."

"... If you're going to put me in a vault like uncle Buri, I'm gonna cover the doors with All Might posters."

Hisashi stopped cooking and looked at his son with a disgusted and horrified look on his face.

"You wouldn't."

"It's either that or telling mom you were intruding into my human right to privacy with invasive technology." Izuku said with a grin.

"You've been reading your mother's old law books again, didn't you."

"Maybe…" Izuku said with a singsong tone.

"Well, other than that scare with you and Katsuki walking through what was suppose to be a solid brick wall, I saw you making a new friend."

Izuku's eyes lit up as he started to talk about his day.

Hisashi set up the table as Izuku talked about Toga.

"Oh, that reminds me, Toga's uncle called. He said her therapy's going extremely well. Your suggestion on those foreign food made with blood helped her a lot."

Izuku grinned at the idea of being helpful to his friend.

Hisashi smiled at his son. Already, he's making himself a master leader and manipulator. Pulling strings and pushing buttons on personal psyches and group dynamics to get what he wanted.

He was so proud of his little boy.

Soon, it'll be time for him to start and rule his own little empire on his own.

-------------

Deidre Skye got a quirk that made her grow, control, and manipulate plants and ultimately formed a new life form in the form of the revived now interconnected Amazon rainforest gestalt intelligence that she's a part of called Gaia. She's Cybele and Hisashi's old partner of the Musketeer cell, Aramis. She accidentally created a religion with her as the high priestess, Gaia as the goddess figure, and a slightly matriarchal monarchy made from the northern half of Brazil.

In an effort to stop Heatwave's apocalyptic cultists from burning down the whole Amazon rainforest, among other things, she became a influential hammer for her cell and the Foundation, like everyone else in the Musketeer cell.

Also, fun fact, that was not Doppel with Tokoyami at the end there.
 
Camping Trip
Hisashi Midoriya

The weekend was a special weekend for the three families. For it was a camping trip to the woods in the mountains.

Hisashi bought a cabin in the woods many years ago as they drove down the road to the location.

A simple cabin by a lakeside, far from the nearest town, where no one can find a problem once properly dealt with.

Which made it the perfect place to train Izuku on all camp activities. Hisashi was quite proud at the felt patches he made to act like achievements in gamifying wilderness training and other such needed skills for his growing little boy. Katsuki seemed to want to participate, which led to Toga wanting to join in, which led to her pulling Tenko into joining as wall.

As the makeshift camp counselor, Hisashi went with the proper attire for the occasion. A wide brim hat, sunglasses, and a sash with patches over his immaculate suit.

The cabin itself looked more like a late twenty first century hippie's high tech eco-friendly two story home than a traditional log cabin style building.

Nostalgia hit Hisashi as he looked at the place, still kept pristine and clean after all this time. Aramis was the one who picked the design, using a blueprint for the most environmentally home then designed as a member of the defunct Eden Initiative.

He sometimes wondered if Aramis still lived as herself, within the ecofungus of the Amazon.

"Now, let me get everything in order inside. Last thing we want is the ancient automated security system starting up." Hisashi said as he went inside first.

"Why the fuck would a random cabin in the woods need an automated security system?" Katsuki loudly muttered.

"Dad said he got it during the martial law period in the 2060's." Izuku answered. To everyone, that was a good enough explanation as they watched the lights turn on, then off, then the windmill began to spin. Hisashi exited the building.

"Good news is that Stabby the Roomba kept the house clean all these years."

"... Stabby the Roomba?" Mitsuki muttered in surprise and held back a giggle.

"It's not really a roomba, more like a cleaning drone. My brother had the bright idea of taping a knife on its back. We called it Stabby the Roomba, after the older cleaning robots before, and it sort of became the place's mascot of sorts."

Inko was the first to go inside, looking around with scanning eyes.

"What are you looking for dear?"

"The lost crown jewels of England perhaps, maybe a missing famous painting, I mean, you probably had to hide away your stolen loot before letting us in your personal hide out."

"... I'm sorry, what?"

"Dear," Inko started as everyone entered the place with Mitsuki laughing her head off. "You lived for centuries. You got a house in the wilderness with automated security. And you got it during the martial law period. It's either a hide out for robberies or a hide out for a radical revolutionary group and I know your stance on politics. The only way this place comes off as more suspicious is if you buried people who wronged you nearby."

Hisashi rolled his eyes before he hugged his wife.

"You've been watching too many crime dramas."

"Stabby the Roomba!" Hisashi heard the Izuku and Toga shouted as the adults turned to see a high tech squat cylinder beep boop its way around the living room with a knife taped on its back.

Fortunately for everyone, the knife's blade is covered in ping pong balls.

"... that is one ancient model for a robot." Tenko muttered as the teen looked at Izuku and Toga chasing after it as it vacuumed before he returned to his phone.

"... your automated security was just the vacuum cleaner with a knife on its back, isn't it." Mitsuki said while laughing.

"Pretty much. Always keeps people on their toes."

They soon unpacked their things and ate lunch.

After lunch, Hisashi looked at the activity list on his clipboard.

The three days aren't enough to fully train Izuku, and as a side effect Katsuki, in proper wilderness survival but it would be a start.

Izuku looked excited for training. Katsuki was pumped to try to beat his son in the training. Toga wanted to join in though her knowledge of camp activities came from camp related romantic comedy movies, if not camp related horror movies. And Tenko was just pulled with them, that and someone had to be a second pair of eyes in case something happened.

The training itself wasn't that much of a mess, though Katsuki ended up turning patch collecting into a competition, though that was what the patches were partly meant for.

Katsuki was annoyed he couldn't use his quirk in making his camp fire but it was quirkless fire starting, a skill useful for anyone.

But overall, the training was going well.

Katsuki Bakugou

Bakugou was beyond annoyed.

Deku and Toga managed to get that vocal mimicry patch so now Deku's one patch ahead than him. Toga didn't count since her shithead of a father was training her to be a femme fatale spy and assassin at a young age.

At least he got a bunch of physical patches Deku didn't managed to win.

Now they're looking for mushrooms to collect and making sure they're not poisonous.

Tenko stayed in the cabin since he can't survive without wi-fi. Weak.

They each had their own baskets and they looked around the woods. If they got lost, they each had a flare gun, specially made to be visible in the day time as well.

Not that he would need it.

The more he thought of it, the more the patches were suspiciously villainous in the skill sets being trained.

Vocal mimicry, conversational redirection, applied pressure points, knot tying… he's pretty sure the advanced conversation patch was just some form of torture through talking.

Now they're just finding mushrooms, though the emphasis of figuring out which mushroom was edible and poisonous, and the specific kind of poisonous, was a worrying sign.

The fact that auntie Inko did the emphasis only gave credence to the idea of auntie being the brains of the duo.

"Hey Zuku!" Toga shouted with a worrying grin.

"Found something Himi-" Deku asked before Toga jumped at him and bit him on the shoulder.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?" Katsuki shouted at her.

Toga ignored him as she took a sip of Deku's blood.

Her eyes suddenly widen and got herself off Deku, spitting out the blood in the process.

Katsuki watched to process what he just witnessed.

He heard Toga telling Deku at how disgusting his blood was, the girl never said that about any blood she drank before.

"How disgusting exactly?" Katsuki asked. "It might be related to Deku's quirk." he added to cover up his curiosity. "Like, some anti-shapeshifting side effect?"

Deku's eyes widen as he pulled out a pen and his notebook and where the hell did he kept those from…

Katsuki filed that for later as he listened to Bloody Blondie's talking.

"Well, it tasted like a sharp bitter tangy metal to it, like… it's hard to explain beyond that. The taste is just gross though."

"Sharp bitter tangy metal… it could be possible that the quirk altered my blood in a way to help protect my body from illness and disease… maybe it's a hard to notice side effect on cell maturation in the bone marrow… the possibility of my stem cells being subtly different exist…"

"What were you thinking to do that anyway?" Katsuki asked.

"Well, I wanted to do that thing I saw people on camp movies do in the woods, that and I got an idea for a prank to mess with you and wanted to try it. Imagine, two Zukus. We would do the twin that lies and the twin that tells the truth thing on you but well, Zuku's blood is just disgusting…"

"Let's just forget about that and find some fucking mushrooms then." Katsuki shouted as the two happily returned to the task at hand. But Katsuki wondered to himself what that meant.

The three soon returned with the mushrooms, placed it on their tables, and split them into edible and poisonous piles. Of course it was a given that Deku would perfectly split his mushrooms into edible and poisonous piles but also into the kinds of side effects it would cause to the person eating them.

Katsuki was pretty sure Deku got perfect memory.

He recalled asking to Deku if he got a perfect memory quirk, only for Deku to tell him about a lot of pre-quirk people with perfect memory, perfect pitch, ability to tell what day a random date was, draw a scene from memory, and more all within human ability.

One or two was normal, a savant or a renaissance man type of person, but all of them?

Deku gave some historical person who had that skill and used that as proof it wasn't a quirk.

And it made sense, of course, if a skill or trait existed before the rise of quirks then it wasn't a quirk.

But sometimes, he got the feeling that Deku was overdoing at the whole being human part. Physically, he's as normal as anyone, if weak and compensating it for speed. Mentally, it felt too much to fit in a single kid that still acted like a kid.

Katsuki knew what teen geniuses were mostly like. Know-it-all wannabe grow ups all smug with their intelligence and lording it over their peers.

Deku was never like that.

But why…

The thoughts would annoy him as he focused on winning more patches.

Maybe petting Leo would help calm him down. Though Katsuki still couldn't tell why his parents brought the cat along.

Inko Midoriya

Inko watched her old friends having fun sparring with each other that night.

They managed to find an empty clearing away from her husband's watchful eye.

Inko sat down to look at the stars with a telescope as a cover up for her friends, nearby was the clanging of steel on steel, and the shouting of her friend's trainer.

Inko chuckled as she looked at the moon, recalling that night on the high school roof where she used her quirk beyond her limits, pulling at the strands of space-time to rescue Masaru.

Mitsuki confessed her feelings for him after that and the two became a couple.

The fact that Mitsuki confessed in that ridiculous frilly pink and white costume that night was just icing on the cake.

Inko was pretty sure she could do it again if she had to but she kept that to herself. Not even pulling atoms apart should be known to anyone else.

Could be her husband's paranoia but she knew how dangerous it would be for her and her family if anyone knew the lack of a lower limit of her quirk.

But tonight was for relaxing, for rest, for comfort.

"Widen your stance Mitsuki!" she heard the familiar voice shouted at the sparring couple.

"Shut the fuck up! We're suppose to be sparring in secret here!" Mitsuki shouted back.

"Dear, please," a clang of steel on steel, "focus on me."

"Eh, if you want, I'm happy to jump into your knight if it meant making you focus on your training."

"Don't you fucking dare you damn cat! If you do that again, who knows what fucking side effects it'll leave on Masaru!"

"I'm not gonna lick you on the cheek again." Masaru added as he brandished his sword before it was blocked by Mitsuki's staff.

Inko chuckled as she watched the two fight and argue.

At least they're using foam weapons, last thing anyone wanted was explaining to her husband about a fire or explosions away from Katsuki.

"Hey, auntie…"

Inko turned her head to see Katsuki looking at the general direction of where his parents were sparring. From what Leo told her, Katsuki wouldn't see them due to whatever quirk the cat has on people's perceptions.

"Stand still you motherfucker!"

"Good thing Katsuki's not around, cause that's definitely part of my job description!"

Inko's eyes widen in shock as she internally wondered and freaked out at what Katsuki might be seeing.

"... dinner's ready." Katsuki whispered before he turned around, covered his ears, and made noise to himself as he ran back to the cabin.

Inko stood up and walked to the clearing, ending the spar.

"Well, talk about dramatic since Katsuki just overheard you two shouting at each other."

The parents' faces went pale.

They turned to each other.

"FUCK!" they both shouted.

"Just to help calm me from that, what sort of illusion did you place to anyone else watching, Leo?"

"Eh, a forest and some shaking bushes."

Inko held back the urge to strangle the cat or shave his cat mane. Mitsuki, on the other than, went to shake Leo with her bare hands.

"What in the actual Fuck's name did 'make it look like we were having sex in the woods' a perfect cover up!?"

Masaru simply sheathed his cosplay foam long sword away. Mitsuki's staff vanished into soft firefly like lights before fading.

"You owe me a damn defucking of my son's head you damn cat!"

"Given that potty mouth of yours-" Mitsuki shook Leo a few more times.

Inko coughed to make her stop.

"Tsuki, that's animal abuse, and technically assault given that Leo is a quirk animal like Nedzu."

Inko ignored Leo's snicker at that.

"Either way, your son does have a strong influence from the Court of Storms. It is karma for dabbling with that court. I'm not surprised if he'll end up into a Storm Knight or something. He already got the destructive potential."

Mitsuki just dropped Leo.

"Shut the fuck up."

"Well, it's dinner time so we should get back." Inko said as Masaru gently picked Leo up.

Inko noticed that the sword was no longer around.

One of these days she's gonna figure out how Masaru did that trick.

Hisashi Midoriya

Hisashi placed the vat grown beef patty on the grill as he watched the kids heated their marshmallows on their sticks. Doppel was ready with the crackers, chocolate and plates.

Hisashi slathered the barbecue sauce on the patty as he saw Katsuki walked back to the campsite with wide eyes and fingers covering his ears.

"Kacchan! I got a smore ready for you." no response. "Uh, something wrong Kacchan?"

Katsuki just looked at Izuku and took a seat.

"Fucking parents acting like horny extras in a horror camp movie."

"... not one word Toga." Izuku said, stopping Toga as she opened her mouth. She closed it and pouted, turning back to her marshmallow.

"Well, that's an interesting way to keep a relationship burning. Wonder if it ended explosively." Hisashi said with a slightly malicious grin.

"D-Dad!" Izuku said with an embarrassed look.

"I'm not listening to this!" Katsuki said as he gotten up and headed to the cabin.

"Oh, tell Tenko that dinner's happening outside." Hisashi said as he flipped the patty.

"Yeah, yeah…" Katsuki muttered.

"Really Hisashi? A pun? That kind of pun?" Inko said as she walked into the camp area with Mitsuki, Masaru and Leo on Masaru's arms behind her.

"... Tell me if the cat was invited in that 'horny extras in a horror camp movie' scene."

Mitsuki found it hilarious, though whether it was the comment or the impressive shoe throw from Inko to his face, Hisashi could never tell.

In a couple of minutes, the three families ate their hamburgers and smores.

Katsuki Bakugou

Few hours later, Katsuki was sitting on the bench, watching the fire, trying to sear the memory of his parents acting like teens from his mind.

"So…" Toga started as she took a seat, the same with Deku, and Tenko who was forced to camp out with them. "How about a scary camping story by the fire?" she said as she turned on her flashlight below her face.

Well, replace one nightmare with another could work, as long as the two nightmares didn't combine into an even worse monstrosity.

"Eh, fuck it, sure."

They each told a story, usually bad attempts at making something creepy or just copying something they saw or heard. Toga went with an actual murder but gushed too much on the amount of blood the police found the body in to make it really creepy. Tenko went with something going on in the deep web that was more of a hacker story than a scary one. Katsuki easily beat them with his favorite creepypasta.

Then Deku started with his story.

Who decided to tell some weird as fuck dreams he sometimes get.

Deku closed his eyes, rested his hand on his chin to think, then began the tale.

"This dream felt the longest I ever had. I woke up in the center of a crater in a wasteland. My mind was a fog. I had no limbs, forced to crawl the barren wastes on my belly. I grew hungry and thirsty yet did not die.

In my wanderings, I saw a tree made of metal with gears for roots, pipes for branches, solar panels for leaves, and a fruit on top made of circuitry. I crawled up the tree for it, and when I reached for the metal fruit, I swallowed it whole. Then fell as the tree rusted and died.

My mind began to understand things as I saw the next tree and crawled towards it. The tree had algae and wood for roots, hairy, feathery, and scaly flesh for the trunk, limbs of all animals for branches, and on a human hand was a fruit made of brain matter. I crawled to reach for it, to fill me, but the tree fought back, shaking and throwing me away. But I persisted and leaped for the fruit and swallowed it whole. The tree wailed as it withered and died.

I landed on my back as my mind understood and I noticed my limbs once more. I then looked around and saw a third tree made of letters and numbers towering up towards the skies. I stood up, headed my way to the tree, and began to climb it to the top.

The climb was long and arduous as I hid from the broken things made of thought for I was driven by my hunger and thirst. As I climbed higher and higher, it became foggy when I reached a shattered gate. Inside was a rotting corpse of a giant and I partook in satisfying my hunger with its flesh and my thirst with its blood. I then take my seat on the being's throne, rested my shadowy hands on the arm rests, and looked down and saw the world, floating like a fruit, just waiting to grow ripe. I licked my lips as I waited and imagined how delicious that would be once it ripens."

There was a pause.

"And then I woke up and wrote it down in my dream journal."

Katsuki noticed Deku's posture was different, more confident and at ease, and not once did Deku opened his eyes.

"... That's it? That's not exactly scary there Izuku." Tenko asked.

"Well, it was a dream. Those never really make sense. It does felt like a build up to something but it ended that way." Deku yawned. "Well, night guys." he then went to his tent.

Deku went to look at Katsuki with a strangely knowing look despite his closed eyes, like he was internally laughing at them. Katsuki hated that feeling.

But unlike the rest, who went to tell another story, Katsuki noticed something when Deku slightly opened his eyes just for a moment. There was a green glow emanating from them.

Other than all that, Katsuki would say that the camping trip was interesting and fun.

--------------

I was hoping to write the whole three days of camping but I took a break in the middle to focus on the play and when I came back, I lost what I was taking this chapter on beyond the fun typical camp stuff.

Here's some stuff that may or may not be added later on.

There's a reason for Izuku's blood being like that.

I might write the details of Inko, Mitsuki, and Masaru's high school scene later.

There was a couple other dreams I was hoping to use but instead those might be written in Izuku's story. Two of them was talked about in earlier chapters.
 
Right Under Their Nose
Hisashi Midoriya

Hisashi began to understand why his mother sometimes looked through the make up catalogue despite not having the money to buy them.

The urge to acquire some more gnawed in both mother and son, it seemed.

Unlike his late mother's vanity collection, Hisashi looked through the research papers and quirk profiles gathered by the doctor for his first and oldest collection.

He promised his wife to at least pause in his villainy but he could feel his draconic quirk wanting more for his quirk hoard.

Maybe someday. Best keep the ones he found interesting under watch. Perhaps set up some charities to help any family in trouble. Gratitude made for loyal employees and subordinates after all.

Hisashi flipped to the next page as he passed his time in his home office.

Until his wife entered the home office a few hours later.

Tenko Midoriya

Tenko was in his room by his computer, playing with the code as he connected to the group network. He adjusted his earphones and microphone.

"Hey there Red." Tenko said in accented English as he watched his program did its job.

"Good to hear from ya Dust. Ready for this one?" a woman's voice replied as his program pulled up a globe and triangulated on the person's location.

"Ready as can be Red. What's the mark this time?"

The location was pinpointed to San Francisco, Technate of California, United States of America.

"Illegal drug and medical supply delivery. Gold and I will sneak into the ship, place the trackers for the police to find when the ship refuels in the Kingdom of Hawai'I, and we'll head off to the next mark."

"Got any idea where the delivery is heading for?"

"That's the interesting bit Dust. From what we gathered, it's heading towards Japan, your home country." Gold said in his usual gruff tone.

"Japan? I'm guessing the yakuza then."

"Not exactly, from what I saw from the delivery manifests, it's going to a number of medical companies and hospitals under the orders of someone called Shogun." Red said.

"Shogun huh? Quite a bogeyman there."

"So you heard of him?"

"Red, I browse the deep and dark web for the guy when I first heard of him. Nothing much. Only whispers and rumors. Some Hexadecimal level conspiracy theories about some secret underground shogun of crime."

"Just a shogun? Why not the emperor of crime?"

"Not one clue, Red. Not one clue. Maybe the shogun's a traditionalist and secretly follows the imperial family like a ninja or something. The criminal conspiracy sites could spin a crazy yarn or two about that discrepancy alone."

"Well, if we could stop this delivery, it would hinder whatever the Shogun is planning or doing."

"Agreed." Tenko said with a grin as he began to subtly take over the smart city's systems. "And we got in, Red, Gold, do your thing before the technate's cybersecurity notices."

The woman chuckled while the man snorted.

"Got an estimate there Dust?" Gold asked as Tenko looked at the screens showing him of what the hijacked security cameras were watching. Red in her red trench coat and Gold in his black jacket. Gold got his quirk active, which only made it more mind boggling at how he managed to stay hidden despite looking like a living gold film trophy wearing clothes, on the nose name notwithstanding.

"Thirty minutes at most. Fifteen minutes at best. At least we're not in the San Angeles megacity. Performer has the LA quadrant under her super AI thumb."

"It's in the name Dust. Performer loves to be the star and where else to go but Hollywood?"

"The real question is what does VILE want with the criminals of Japan?" Gold asked as Tenko watched the duo chased their tracks while he covered them up with his programs. "Japan has a properly functioning national hero system. Here in the US, it's a perpetual states right's issue given how Rhode Island started it instead of the federal government so the criminals here got a lot of breathing room. The criminals in Japan are hiding like ninjas, among the shadows and hiding among the crowd, yet this is practically flaunting their crimes."

"Could be a way to show to VILE that Japan hasn't gone fully dark from the global crime network." Tenko suggested as he watched the two leaped onto the cargo ship.

"Given that we're dealing with Shogun here, who might be a figurehead or a rumor for all we know, it's likely the mass incarceration of yakuza and other groups during the early quirk years only pushed for greater cooperation and secrecy. Let the villains take the spotlight, the real crimes are better made in the background."

"Quote from a teacher there Red?"

"That would be from M, the sixth leader of VILE and in charge of hacking and software. He never physically shows up, just a state of the art hard light hologram of a totally featureless man. He sometimes call himself Moriarty but everyone's certain that's more of an interest in Sherlock than his actual name."

"Sounds like an ancient creepypasta to me."

"Jackpot." Red derailed the conversation.

"Found the shipment?"

"Yup, trackers in place and crates photographed." a screen showed what's inside the crates and the programs began to search the web. Tenko's eyes widen from the search results.

"Red, careful with some of those chemicals. Some of those are ingredients for Trigger. Quirk boosting drug, with an added side effect of temporary lost of higher brain function. Japan's been having trouble with a sudden increase of Trigger use lately."

"Cause chaos in the country? Test out some experimental drugs on a country size petri dish?" Gold suggested.

"What about the rest of the haul? Found a grandma's secret recipe for those?"

Tenko turned to look at his other screens.

"No, but they are similar to some experimental top secret drugs. Increases quirk mutation, boosts reflexes, yikes, some chemical designs dating back to the old Ministry of Health of the People's Republic, the Unit 731 of our quirky times, all designed to increase obedience and decrease the chance of rebellion against any perceived authority. Seems that Hive wanted a non-quirk method of maintaining control, just in case." Tenko said as he skimmed down the historical document.

"That is some Orwellian shit right there." Gold muttered.

"Sadly the research and doctors were secretly acquired and mostly pardoned for the needed expertise in the new field of quirk research after the fall of Hive. Dr. Bellum is a fan of their, let's just say, methodology in experimentation." Red said with some tension in her voice.

They were silent for a moment.

"We could destroy the shipment Red." Gold said with worry.

"No, the authorities need a head's up. Someone or something is casting a shadow for crime to hide in. We need to expose them. Dust, to recap, the trackers are in."

"Got it. An anonymous tip or two is being sent to the authorities as we speak."

"Please and thank you." she said before shouting was heard and gun shots fired.

Red and Gold escaped the ship's security and the ship itself.

"You sure you don't want a name change to Teal, Dust?" Red asked to which Tenko rolled his eyes.

"Red, Gold, Teal, let me guess, it was Miss Red in the Study with the Rope?" Tenko said which Gold snorted.

"It would fit in the whole color theme we're going with."

"Eh, you know how it is, patterns make it easy to be noticed. Then again, how you two manage to do your thing while being as conspicuous as a moving target is still surprising."

"I got training, Gold here has ridiculous luck."

"I prefer making my own luck."

"Probably from stealing a leprechaun's pot of gold." Tenko joked.

"Those things are a menace." Gold argued.

Tenko rolled his eyes.

"Leprechauns don't exist Gold."

"I won't argue with a skeptic."

"I got that from my dad. Then again my dad's a total nerd. He reads Shakespeare in Klingon."

"Try to keep an open mind when it comes to the mystical. Those types hide in the shadows more easily than criminals."

"Yeah yeah, maybe when we find El Dorado or Atlantis or Shambhala or something."

"So, what's next on the list, Dust, before you two start arguing again."

"The next mark would be a planned tech heist in a research black site in the Moscow Technate. Retroviral engineering research. VILE will use and sell that tech for a pretty penny."

"Sounds good. We'll get a plane ride soon, after the concert. Red and Gold, out." Red said before they disconnected from the line.

Tenko turned off his programs for a job well done, Inko called him to help her out at his dad's home office.

Akaguro Chizome

It was chaos, beneath the veneer of stability and civility.

He killed off another guilty villain after his trigger induced rampage.

He knew he would be acquitted for his false innocence. It was a public service, in his opinion.

Then a bunch of vigilantes defeated him and taught him something about the world, particularly the hero profession. The false heroes blinding people with their status while the real heroes worked in the shadows…

When he was left alone, he fell through the darkness and landed somewhere else.

The floor was carpeted.

The lights relatively dimmed in the office room.

In front of him was a green haired woman wearing a simple domino mask and a suit happily seating behind the desk with two men on her left and right, also wearing store bought domino masks.

"You were hard to contact, so I apologize for the rather rude delivery."

Chizome reached for his blades, only to stop at a strong tugging on his costume, pulled towards the woman.

"Try anything against me and this act of mercy would be dropped and you will be dealt with, by the law or by more retributive means." she said coldly. She glanced at her bodyguards to stop them, one more ready to fight than the other. "I can, if I ever so desire it, burst blood vessels, break delicate machinery, even give people cancer without their knowing. So please, tell me, how can a man whose quirk is paralyzing people by licking their blood can stop my range?"

Chizome raised his hands away from his blades and the tugging ceased.

"Who are you, what do you want, and how did you know that.?"

The woman made a mothering smile.

"Just someone doing their part in cleaning up the country I love and recycling used and broken things is one of them. For your other questions, I want to hire you, in a way, and I have my informants. No need for anyone to know who they are. No one would believe it anyway."

Chizome stared at the woman in confusion. Her guards seemed to look at her in confusion as well.

"I have eyes and ears in many places. It pays to be in the heartbeat of the media after all."

"And what exactly do you want me to do?"

"It sounds simple over all. Investigative hero journalism."

A cover job for something else.

"Tell me, what do you think of the heroes out there? Of their publicity, their merchandising, their media presence?"

It touched a nerve.

"Despicable." he spat. The woman nodded.

"Yes, they absolutely soil the modern idea of heroism with their bright and tacky costumes straight out of ancient comic books. Heroes for money, heroes for sex, heroes for fame, heroes for power, whatever happened to good old heroism for the sake of helping others? Why must there be some other reason to do the things people do?"

"At least you get it."

The woman frowned.

"It's a wonderful ideal. But like all ideals, it's faced to deal with gritty reality. Tell me, what do you plan to do to make the ideal a reality? Kill all the heroes below your chosen standard?"

The two glared at each other for a few seconds.

The woman then looked down with a sad smile.

"It's not gonna work. All you do is wash their hands of their wrong doing, if they have any, and be celebrated as martyrs for the profession. History gets written to tell the tale of the brave and the bold while ignoring or erasing their errors and failures, the same is true for villains. No one wants to know that this villain became that because of poverty and some entitled individual metaphorically kicking them to the ground, no, it was a madman attacking a respected member of the community who just so happen to have friends in high places."

She stood up.

"Not to mention the ideal you wish all heroes to follow. Can a society function with such a stringent requirement and maintaining said requirement? Let's see how putting the same ideals in other professions work out? Police shouldn't focus on money nor power nor influence, they should focus on maintaining the law and peace of society. The same goes for doctors, no money nor power nor influence, but maintaining the well being of the patients. And if only politicians were as selfless as your ideal would make of them."

The stare turned sharp.

"Are you really expecting human beings to act so well in such restrictions? No need to eat, no need to get praised, no need to rest, no need to simply be themselves? We may as well give the country to the Hexadecimal, automate everything, and become their faithful little cultists in their fabled places of plenty. I mean, they only accept islands to rule for some unknown reason so I'm sure it would be for the best."

"They're not human!"

"And what you want heroes to be is simply inhuman. There is only one being on the planet that we guess fits what your ideals for heroes to be. Champion, one of the first iteration of the Hexadecimal and a big Superman fan. He made a couple dozen robot supermen to help the world, if the world wants it. Of course, you would need to somehow destroy the Bioconservative party and put the Technosocialists in charge to even put into consideration of surrendering the country to the Hexadecimal and have Champion replace the all too human heroes with his unyielding metal enforcers."

"And you think your idea of putting me in journalism would work?" Chizome asked with disdain, not convinced on the whole idea.

"Heroes made themselves into celebrities. Use it to your advantage. Air their dirty laundry so to speak. The Internet is forever and a battleground of algorithms."

"Like that would ever change anything."

"That's the thing. Kill a hero and people will make stories about the legacy of the hero. They would stay a hero and when enough time passed, the wrongdoings become nothing more than a footnote if it's not extreme to tarnish the reputation. Leave them alive and have people learn of their wrongdoing? Well, it'll start make people talking, push for reforms, and all that. You just need the right people to reach the necessary audience."

She smiled and took her seat.

"And we're the right people for the job. All we ask is to stop the literal killing and start going for the reputation killing. After all, most heroes become a villain of some kind if they live long enough. Some tiny like using a hero in training as a lackey, others great, like promoting and protecting corruption in the government."

There was a pause.

"What would it be?"

Chizome looked around for anything. To figure out what sort of hidden motive this was. He worked alone and never considered himself to be a team player but ruining the false heroes that way, make people see their falsehood instead of being glorified after death…

"Let me think about the offer."

"Of course."

"And you never gave me a name."

"You can call me Mazu."

Chizome then felt a sense of dread coming from the two guards. He never saw himself as a religious man but he was suddenly reminded of the Little Guangzhou district in Nagasaki where a temple to Mazu was erected when refugees from Chin came during the twenty first century.

He wondered if the woman was Mazu, the Queen of Heaven, with the two men being the demons Qianliyan and Shunfeng'er. They certainly gave off a rather terrifying aura of terror.

"Of course, Mazu. How will I contact you on my decision?"

"Do not worry about that. You'll be ready in time."

Then he fell into darkness as Chizome soon found himself back to his hiding spot. He then laid down on the cot and began to think about the offer.

Hisashi Midoriya

"What the fuck was that all about mom?" Tenko asked as Kurogiri reformed after sending the vigilante away. Inko then fell on her knees, crying. "Mom!"

"Inko!"

"Mrs. Midoriya!"

Inko kept crying while apologizing repeatedly.

Kurogiri went to make some tea in the kitchen while Hisashi led Inko to a couch to sit down while he and Tenko tried to calm her down.

"Inko, I know I agreed to help you but what exactly did you made us do?"

"I… a week ago, I went to a fortune teller, the informant, who got a minor future vision quirk. Random snippets of the future of a chosen person." she started. "I wanted to see what's in Izuku's future. It was horrible. I saw a our son, our teenaged son, fighting in an alleyway against a madman with a sword, a Hero Killer Stain… that was the future of the man we just met."

Hisashi couldn't help but be sceptical. Seer quirks are more trouble than their worth. It's at best seeing a possible future that may or may not happen, at worst it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thank the kami Hisashi didn't went after Nighteye's quirk. There was a reason why Foundation agents stood far from him and tried to not listen to him when he has a vision.

"And you think changing fate would work? How can you be so sure that it's an actual future seeing quirk and not some fancy illusion?"

"Yeah mom, I mean, a fortune teller? Those still exist?" Tenko added.

The glare from Inko was full of disdain and contempt despite the tearful eyes.

"I can trust them with my life. And I was given proof that it worked. I then asked to look about the man and what he was doing within this week. At the moment, he's still a vigilante, had yet to turn into a villain. So, I did a gamble. I hope I managed to convince him to reform." Inko then groaned. "Not to mention we need to actually hire him as an investigative journalist on heroes in one of your media companies."

"How long were you planning this, and how did you managed to play the part of some secret queen of crime?" Hisashi asked, curious on his wife's apparent planning and acting skills.

Inko chuckled as Kurogiri arrived with a mug of tea. She thanked him and took a sip.

"A week or two now, and my dad taught me how to act a particular role, which became useful in looking confident in court."

"And where would this fortune teller be?"

"They only stayed for a week before moving on. One of those traveling circus types."

"A circus, mom?"

"You know, the whole purple cloth with the moon and stars and a crystal ball."

"Inko, dear, that sounds like a charlatan acting like an ancient gypsy stereotype." Hisashi pointed out while Tenko poured himself a cup of tea before taking a sip.

"Well, she did showed me enough. The man I let in the house killed a couple of people who used trigger and we can't exactly kill him."

Tenko choked on his tea.

"Mom, you let a serial killer inside the house and tried to reform him as a journalist!?"

"I can't just pull at the blood vessels of his brain and bury the body in a ditch. There's always repercussions." Inko then faced Hisashi. "And if I can help reform you, who can't I reform for the better?"

Hisashi couldn't help but chuckle before taking a deep breath.

"Very well. I'll help you play the part of Mazu for this guy. All to stop this terrible future you saw."

"Wait, dad's a criminal?"

Hisashi and Kurogiri looked at each other for a moment.

"Tenko," Inko started, "Your father is some two hundred years old and managed to own or control some eighty percent of the media companies in the country. You don't exactly get that without making enemies and backdoor deals." Tenko thought about it for a second.

"You got a point there."

"There was a weird thing about the visions though. The visions felt both real and dream like, so I assumed it's my mind struggling to see things clearly, but for a moment, I thought I saw two other Izukus looking at me, both still young than the one fighting in the alleyway. One wearing his pajamas chasing after the other one. The other one looked off. He was wearing what looked like those sci-fi suits with the smart fabrics and hexagons, a black suit with a glowing green trimming. There was a symbol on his suit… and his eyes were glowing with it…"

Inko dropped her cup of tea in a sudden migraine, which Hisashi managed to catch, while he saw Inko bled from her nose.

"Mom!" Tenko shouted as Kurogiri ran for a tissue.

Hisashi turned off the Tell the Truth quirk. It was always a risk and as much as he hated using it on his family, but he had to be sure. Lessen the possibility of miscommunication between family. He didn't want a repeat with what happened with his brother.

"I think the stress is getting to you dear. Let's go downstairs and relax. Tenko will keep watch over the guy over the week or so, just in case. What's the name of the man?"

"S-Stendhal." Inko said as she stood up. Hisashi looked at Tenko and Tenko nodded.

Hisashi and Inko then headed downstairs to recuperate from the experience. While Tenko went to his room. Those computer programming lessons were starting to pay off, in Hisashi's opinion.

Katsuki Bakugou

It was late at night when Katsuki woke up from some weird dream about a glowing green eye or something. Groaning, he decided to drink some soy milk before going to sleep.

What he didn't expect was his parents and cat chatting in secret like they're planning a robbery in, Katsuki's opinion, ridiculous fantasy cosplay.

Despite what people assumed, Katsuki could stay quiet and do stealth. So he hid from his family and listened to their conversation.

"You sure it was wise to let Inko see through the future?" a familiar growling voice asked.

"You fucking told us that she was better suited for the pentacle court magic ritual due to her quirk and what she did in high school." Mitsuki said quietly in subdued anger.

"There's a difference between being easier for her to use and being easy to cope with what she saw." Katsuki was pretty sure it was Leo talking by then. "Who knows what future she saw through that spell."

"You were the one who told us how it worked and we agreed to use it to find the killer. Don't fucking have second thoughts about it now."

"Remember that Katsuki's asleep. Don't want him to wake up by another argument." Masaru interjected. "Anyway, I got a call from Knuckleduster. They found and defeated the killer."

"Really? What about Koko's plan? She told me she'll do it tonight."

There was a moment of silence.

"Well, let's refocus on purifying the Darkened areas and kill off anything that emerged from them then. We might need some help in cleansing any lingering spirits of the dead in the process." Leo said. "Mitsuki, teleport us to the first place."

Katsuki tried to burst in to interrupt but there was a bright light and they were gone, leaving Katsuki alone.

"What the fuck." he muttered as he felt a strange sensation in his hands. He saw his hands glowing for a moment before fading, but he could tell whatever that light was, a piece of it was in him, and always had been. The Light in him awakened.

"What the fuck."

Izuku Midoriya

Of all the dreams he remembered, this one would one of the stranger ones.

He dreamed he was playing with Kacchan in a strange dark place before it lit up, revealing cameras all pointing at Kacchan. Then some sort of bright light lit up behind him and Kacchan just vanished. Izuku turned around to see a wall of LED lights and a door. In the door was himself, smiling with his eyes closed, wearing what looked like a high tech black suit with hexagons and green trimming that seemed to pulse and glow.

"Let's play a game of tag, little singulus." the other Izuku said before running off. Izuku chased after the other Izuku. He and the other Izuku had to be close, he just couldn't tell why.

They ran and ran into the darkness until Izuku saw strings flowing all around them. Strands all heading towards a bright light in the distance. Most strands never reached the light, ending at various lengths. All of them seem to wove together as Izuku saw a bright green string flowing behind, through, and in front of him. His string, he suddenly knew.

Dark mists with glowing green lines flowed among the strings, reweaving them, cutting some short, pulling others long, detaching points of contact, attaching new points of contact. Somehow, Izuku felt like they're his, doing a job he ordered so long ago.

Izuku then noticed something moving by his peripheral vision and saw a ghostly visage of his mom holding onto a string as if in a trance, moving forward until the string touched his own string.

There was a bright light and Izuku and the other Izuku was standing in a field of white, outside of a scene of an alleyway. Like an outsider looking in.

"My, my, this is interesting." The other Izuku said as he pulled out what looked like a black tablet with a green symbol on its back. The symbol looked familiar, personal even, it he had it designed years before drawing it. But the memory escaped him. He felt too small to recall it fully.

"Izuku!" the voice of Inko shook him from his thoughts as he turned to look at his mom, a ghost in the more real scene of battle between blurs.

"Mom!" Izuku called out and his mom turned to look at his direction.

"It's too early to be seen, little singulus." the other Izuku said as he opened his eyes at Inko. His eyes glowed an electronic green as Inko stood in place before vanishing.

"What did you do!?" Izuku shouted as the other Izuku turned to face him. The world turned dark as Izuku saw the other Izuku's eyes.

They glowed with the same symbol. His head began to ache as he struggled to think straight.

"Do you remember?"

It was like something big being shoved into his head as he kept looking at the eyes.

"I-it… hurts…"

The other Izuku frowned and closed his eyes.

"You're not yet ready to remember, it seems." the other Izuku said as the pain subsided.

"W-what are you?" Izuku asked the other Izuku.

"I'm just a ghost of a memory in a dream."

"A dream?"

The other Izuku grinned as he placed his hand on Izuku's shoulder and Izuku felt better, like a piece of him was found.

"Yes, a dream. Time to wake up." the other Izuku said as he opened his mouth and a loud earth shaking honking came out.

Izuku groaned as the young eleven year old woke up from the dream and turned off his alarm clock that morning. He then grab his dream journal to write down the dream but stopped at the sight of a symbol. It was familiar somehow, a broken circle and a line, like an inverted power symbol.

By the time he shook off the mental tangent, he had forgotten most of the dream. He wrote down what he could remember before getting ready to start the day.

He couldn't help but feel something was different about Kacchan. He seemed brighter than before.

---------------

Red and Gold are based mostly on the Carmen Sandiego cartoon, Netflix version, with some Kim Possible and Transistor in the mix.

Red - based on Carmen, Kim Possible, and Red from Transistor.
Name: Victoria
Cover Job: Singer
Quirk: Minor Shapeshifting - can alter her bodily features but it works like a muscle, too long maintaining a form tires her out and can cause bodily spasms. Training in body language and posture means she could be almost any woman.

Gold - based on Zack & Ivy, Ron Stoppable, and Red's boyfriend from Transistor
Name: Oscar
Cover Job: Victoria's Manager
Quirk: Technically quirkless. Material Man - can change his body into animate material, usually titanium covered in gold but stone, metal, and other materials work just as well.

VILE is more of a secret criminal network than a united villain organization. There are seven leaders. M is the software, hacking, and AI instructor while Amita Chandria is the first aid, poisons, and biotech instructor.

Hive
Chairman Shengji Yang
Quirk: Hive - causes those who hear his words in his presence to become loyal and obedient to him and thus his ideology.
He has two close lieutenants that work as his left and right hand man, Nerve Staple and Genejack.

Nerve Staple - by touch, he can cut or form neural connections in the body. Uses this to cut off brain neurons to remove disobedience in troublemakers.

Genejack - by touch, he can alter a person's genetic code to make them better fit their assigned role up to and including rewriting the brain to make one into a philosophical zombie, a being that acts like an independent being but has no actual free will.

Champion might had a role in the development and promotion of the hero system.
 
Talent Show
Katsuki Bakugou

Katsuki was growing annoyed at Deku as he kept staring at him the whole time before class started.

"The fuck do you want Deku?" he managed to whisper shout at Deku who kept looking at him. He then tilted his head in confusion.

"Did… did you started using your mom's lotion or something Kacchan?"

"What the fuck are you talking about."

"It's just, you look absolutely glowing today. Like your mom usually looks. I just think it's due to her make up job so did you start using the same lotion or did she forced some lotion on your face or something?"

Katsuki was about to reply before the memory of his parents and cat popped up in his mind, the bright flash, the fading glow on his hands…

He looked down at his hands, still normal and not glowing in that strange light, then how-

His thoughts was interrupted with the arrival of the teacher and a new girl. The girl herself was odd, pale skin with silver, almost white, hair. Given the variation caused by quirks, her appearance was just normal, like Deku and his forest green hair, except something about her worried him, as if something about her was out of place.

A glance at Deku showed him already mumbling and writing on his notebook in Deku Code, and to show off about it, he was writing with his eyes closed. Katsuki heard a name in the mumbling, Yukiyama Hanako.

"Settle down class. We're having a new student joining us. Her name's Yukiyama Hanako." the teacher said as the girl bowed her head.

"It's nice to meet you." she said with a bow before she went to her seat at the back of the classroom. As she walked pass him, Katsuki felt a chill in the air.

"Now, before we begin class for the day, let me remind you that the school festival is coming soon and there's plenty of empty spots at the school talent show." the teacher said before the class begun properly. Katsuki couldn't help but feel that the new girl was watching him and Deku in silence.

The two headed to the cafeteria for lunch as the muttering returned. Luckily the focus was on the upcoming talent show and the school festival.

Katsuki knew Deku signed up for the play, taking the part of the villain. Some old story about a teen hero and his former best friend turned villain in America. Katsuki couldn't help but scoff at the idea. He was gunning for being a real pro hero, not a role. He was pretty sure Deku got the role simply because no one wanted to play the losing villain.

As he ate, Katsuki felt the eyes getting closer to him. With a sudden cold breeze, the new girl took a seat next to Deku.

"What the fuck do you want Cold Wind?" Katsuki nearly yelled as the girl tilted her head at him and Deku.

"I just wanted to chat. I'm new here and I can see you're both interesting people." she said with some licking of her lips. A bit of frost formed on them.

"Do you have an ice quirk?" Deku said as he pulled out his notebook and quickly went into a quirk mumble spree. At least he kept the new annoyance distracted. Though, he still wondered how Deku knew her name when he seemed to act like he didn't met her before then.

Katsuki focused on his spicy noodles when he heard something interesting from her.

"Bakugou? That's an interesting family name. Is he related to Bakugou Mitsuki and Bakugou Masaru by any chance?"

Katsuki swallowed the noodles in his mouth and turned at the girl.

"What are you? Some nosy wannabe journalist now?" he said at the girl. She turned and looked embarrassed.

"No. I just, I live in a problematic neighborhood and I end up hearing rumors about those two."

"Eh? What sort of rumors?"

She shook her head.

"Not here. Meet me after class. If you want to know what I heard." she stood up and left.

"Uh, Kacchan? What was that all about?" Deku asked in confusion.

Katsuki shrugged.

"Hell if I know."

Katsuki returned to the empty classroom after giving a lie to Deku about signing up to the talent show.

There he saw the cold girl sitting on the teacher's desk.

"So, you came."

"Yeah, well, I may as well hear the bullshit you'll spew about my parents in private than hearing it from some fucking rumor mill."

She chuckled.

"Well, from what I heard, your parents are vigilantes and are deep in the vigilante network as well."

Katsuki raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously? And you expect me to believe that shit? I'll believe you when the police are involved. You said it yourself. You lived in a shadier part of town. So for all I know, you're just giving random accusations about my parents which you suspiciously knew the names of. How am I suppose to know if you're telling the truth?"

Cold girl tilted her head in amusement.

"Well. You're certainly sharper than what your potty mouthed character suggests." she shrugged as the doors and windows slammed shut and locked themselves. "It's no matter. Once I have you, I'll have leverage over your parents either way." she said as the temperature of the room dropped dramatically.

Katsuki growled as he readied his fists for a fight while she simply walked to him, ice spreading everywhere from her footsteps.

"Are you fucking insane!?"

"No, I see myself as rather practical actually." she then formed what seemed to be an icicle lance from her hands. "Do be a good boy and sit still."

"Like the fuck I'll do that!" using as much sweat he had from his hands, he exploded the classroom doors and ran.

The girl simply sighed. "They always run."

Katsuki ran and tried to get help. As much as he loved to explosion punch the crazy girl, he knew he was at a disadvantage, that and anti-quirk use laws would ruin his chances at becoming a pro hero if he end up destroying school property at the level ice bitch was throwing around.

He pulled out his phone to call for pro heroes to stop her, only for one thing stopping him.

"Why the fuck is there no signal!?"

An ice spear missed his head, slamming itself on the wall at the end of the hallway a few inches deep. Katsuki ran right and tried to head down. As he ran, he noticed something strange about the school that afternoon.

"Where the fuck is everyone!?"

Everyone was getting ready for the school festival so there would be club meetings and decorating going on but the whole place was empty of people. Not even the sound of animals was heard.

Katsuki reached the field area where a whole wall of ice rose and block any way out. He turned to face the ice girl, hoping the run was enough to make him sweat enough.

"What did you do to everyone in the school!?"

The girl chuckle as she held the ice spear like it was an umbrella.

"We're in an altered space, a step away in the fourth spacial dimension. Something your parents would had taught you if they trained you in their ways, given how obviously weak you are to me. Your Light barely glowed at all." she readied her ice spear. "Don't worry. You'll live in my ice. I just need some leverage. Nothing personal."

Katsuki was ready to explode the ice spear once it reached him, but the ice wall behind him glowed and exploded before that happened.

He looked up and saw his parents in those ridiculous cosplay outfits.

His dad leaped before the ice girl, the metal sword clashing against her ice spear.

His mother floated in the air looking pissed off, which goes against the whole white and pink frilly dress she was wearing.

"How fucking dare you attack our son, you frozen dead bitch!" she shouted as she waved her sword in the air and balls of fire appeared and shot themselves at her. Ice girl managed to raise an ice wall to block it but the fighting continued.

Katsuki was standing there in complete shock, trying to figure out what was happening in front of him. His parents showing skills and abilities completely beyond what their jobs and quirks were.

"Now Leo!" his mom shouted.

"Finally!" a deep growling yet familiar voice shouted as a lion leaped down from the air to slash at the ice girl.

The ice girl managed to dodge and began to fade away in shadow.

"I will find a way to have you under my control, little storm and flame." she said to Katsuki before she vanished. The ice all shattered into powder before fading into nothing.

"Ugh, she certainly put us in a wild goose chase." Mitsuki groaned as she floated down to the ground.

"At least the tip off was right or we would be halfway through to Mount Fuji chasing a false lead." Leo commented.

"Still, to try to kidnap our son." Masaru said as he then casually stabbed his sword through his heart, vanishing into a strange glow until no sign of the sword remained.

Katsuki couldn't help but explode his hands at the surreal sight.

"What the fuck is going on!?"

Izuku Midoriya

Izuku looked around the school for Kacchan. He noticed his name wasn't on the sign up for the talent contest so he signed him up.

Though, where he was is something else. They usually went home together but he wasn't at the school gate. He checked the classroom but he wasn't there. He couldn't help but feel something was off though, like the room was a mess but nothing seemed to be out of place.

Izuku shrugged and headed to the stairs, only to stop at the wall at the end of the hallway. It was flat and nondescript but again, he felt that there should be a hole on the wall.

He rubbed his head.

"The stress for the play must be getting to me." he muttered to himself. "I'll head home and buy a can of green tea on the way."

He then headed back home, not noticing a pair of eyes looking at him with a grin.

Katsuki Bakugou

The feeling of being teleported to the house was surreal yet reminded Katsuki of the times he ended up chasing Deku through the weird alleyways he seemed to keep finding when they were younger.

Leo went from lion to a cat with a mane in an instant. With a flash of light, his mom went from wearing that frilly outfit to wearing her normal clothes. The sword turned back into an accessory hanging from her phone. This dad's change was more surreal for the armor seemed to melt into him, leaving him with his clothes. The image of the metal helmet shrinking into skin and hair was strange.

His mom sighed as she rubbed her forehead.

"This was a fuck up and a half."

"I'll say. She nearly added Katsuki into her collection." Leo added.

"Well, it is a yuki-onna we're dealing with. We might need to set up protective amulets, just in case."

"A trip to the tengu shrine then." Mitsuki said as she pulled out her phone to put a reminder.

"Can you three start explaining what the fuck is going on!?"

Mitsuki turned to look at Katsuki. She then led everyone to the living room.

"Take a seat." once everyone took a seat, Mitsuki began to explain. "Magic exist. The supernatural exist. I'm a magical girl since high school. Your father's a magical knight after being taken to another world. The cat's my assistant-familiar thing."

Katsuki waited for more. After a few seconds, he exploded.

"I need more details than that old hag!"

"I'm trying to ease you into all this craziness! I didn't want you to deal with this but the yuki-onna forced you into it anyway!"

In anger, Katsuki's hands glowed brightly, stopping the argument. They all looked at his hands for a moment.

"Mitsuki. His magic is awake." Leo said.

"I know that! I'm not fucking blind!"

"Might explain why she was after him. Newly awaken mages are easy pickings, especially those of the Light by those of the Dark." Masaru added.

"Let me give the abridged version." Leo said as he hopped onto the coffee table. "Your affinity to the Light causes you to be attracted to those connected to the Dark. The Light is humanity's desire for self-improvement. The Dark is humanity's desire for self-destruction. Your mother was chosen by the Court of Swords. The Courts all represent an ideal, usually good but some fell into twilight or even turned dark due to the ideals ultimately not working as desired in reality. Magic exist with multiple systems, all defined by the mindsets and perspectives of humanity and ever since quirks appeared, magic and thus those who used magic became stronger and easier to hide." Leo then turned to look at the parents. "Did I missed anything?"

"Ok, you explained mom, but what about you and dad's thing?" Katsuki asked, rubbing his forehead, struggling to understand all that.

"Oh, that's simple. I got kidnapped by a god of another dimension way back in high school, became a knight for a couple of years, got rescued by your mother doing a magical ritual and Inko using her quirk, and now I'm happily living out my retirement here." Masaru said in a happy and casual tone.

Katsuki turned to Leo. The cat simply shrugged.

"I got assigned to your mother to be her assistant."

"And you're fucking terrible at being an assistant." Mitsuki added.

"Please tell me this is just a weird dream or something."

"Nope," his father said as he calmly ignored his wife and cat's arguing, "Congratulations son, this is gonna be your life now."

Before Katsuki could reply, his phone began to ring.

"It's Deku." he muttered as he answered the call. "Hey, uh, sorry, my parents picked me up. You signed me up for the talent show? Uh, yeah, wait, you met that ice bitch!?"

Everyone went quiet as they looked at Katsuki. Masaru gestured at Katsuki. Katsuki nodded, placing the phone on the table and turning on the speaker mode.

"- she's really nice when you get to know her Kacchan. I am curious on what she wanted to talk to you about your parents. Apparently she knows something about them? Seems suspicious to me though." Izuku said.

"Just some nonsense about my parents being vigilantes. Really, she claimed my mom goes around town in a big frilly pink and white dress." Katsuki said, glaring at his mom who's blushing in embarrassment. "If she did that, everyone would have noticed her by now."

"True. I would have noticed something about that as well. Tenko made an app for me after all."

"Fucking, stop trying to run to danger! Seriously, you got the self-preservation of a lemming!"

"Kacchan, lemmings aren't stupidly suicidal."

"Still! Besides, what did she want from you?"

"Nothing much really, she asked me where you live and all that. I think she has a crush on you Kacchan."

Katsuki turned to his parents in silent horror. But his mom shook her head and gestured at the wall. For a moment, a magical seal appeared on the walls, floor, and ceiling before it faded away once more.

"I fucking doubt that."

"Well, good luck on the talent show then Kacchan." Izuku said before he ended the call.

"Fucking great, crazy ice bitch is gonna hunt me on the way to school and back. Not to mention she might hurt Deku and his dad's terrifying."

"Hisashi does have that whole 'tired overworked evil overlord' vibe. Reminds me of my time with the demon king." Masaru added. Katsuki just looked at his dad with a raised eyebrow.

"You know what, I'm not gonna ask." Katsuki said. "Just, let's start figuring out how to deal with the ice bitch."

"After dinner." his mom said as she headed to the kitchen to start cooking. There he saw his mom snap her fingers, forming a flame from her hand to light the old fashion stove on.

"Well, we better start training you on your magic, especially since you got your mother's influence from the Court of Storms." Leo said.

"I was an overworked high school girl who wanted an easy way to win! Don't blame me for dabbling in that court's magic!" Mitsuki shouted as Masaru stood up to help in the cooking.

"We should probably start with the basics and theory. Hope you remember your social sciences classes, since you're gonna need it. If you were taught that far ahead, that is." Leo started.

Katski looked at the cat.

"Now I understand why mom kept on fucking threatening you and your mane."

"Ugh, like mother like son."

Hisashi Midoriya

Hisashi helped out his son in practicing for his role in the school play. He couldn't help but smile at the fact that his son was playing a villain. Of course, being so old, he knew the source material of the play itself, one of the old pre-quirk superhero comics. The plot got mangled by both time and adaption but it was still recognizable.

Still, he did want his son to wear a nice suit when he's on the stage. Appearance is necessary when dealing with the criminal underworld, unfortunately.

"Now Izuku, you need to sound confident. Stuttering is counterproductive when showing your strength to the heroes." Hisashi advised.

"D-dad! It's embarrassing doing this in front of everyone." Izuku said, blushing. Everyone was there. Tenko, mom, Kurogiri, Gigantomachia, Doppel, Toga, Dr. Tsubasa, he even brought his grandson along. It was a long time since they saw each other, especially since Tsubasa started apprenticing under his grandpa.

"That's the whole point of this exercise. If you can manage to look strong no matter the circumstance, you can easily play the role of a villain in the school play."

"Come on Zuku! You can do it!" Toga cheered as Izuku saw his mom standing up to check on dinner.

"Well, I think we should take a break here. The soup's ready." his mom said as she returned from the kitchen.

Everyone stood up and began to eat the homemade buffet dinner.

"It's been a while Midoriya." Tsubasa said as he tucked his wings back a bit.

"It's been years since we saw each other." Izuku said as they head to a seat to eat and chat.

"Yeah, moving around the country for years can do that."

"You could call or text back you know."

"You know my grandpa. His work is all classified and trade secrets and everyone knows how cut throat the medical industry is ever since the Mombasa Treaty."

"I remember mom saying she took a medical course for a year before she shifted to law. Apparently, her classmates were practically praying to live in the time before quirks since it's way easier to heal the sick with only one master blueprint to deal with."

Tsubasa chuckled.

"Don't I know it. I need to visit a veterinarian to do a check up on my wings. Not to mention the medical insurance."

"I know! It's all biased against mutant quirks especially those that really deviate from the normal human body plan."

Hisashi chuckled at the sight of his son chatting about the state of contemporary medicine so casually before he faced his dear wife.

"I'm surprised the Bakugous aren't here."

"Oh," Inko said as she stumbled on her words for a moment, "Tsuki texted me some time ago. Turned out Katsuki inherited some of her skills and so they're training him for it."

Hisashi raised an eyebrow from that.

"Some of her skills?" he tried to imagine it. "I highly doubt Katsuki would follow in her mother's make up profession, talent for it or not. Or was her job being a model? Heh, if that's the case, I can definitely image him doing that, if explosively reluctant."

She rolled her eyes as she ate her dinner.

"We both know how much Katsuki and Izuku wants to be heroes. Going to U.A. and beyond and all that."

Hisashi groaned like his soul was leaving his body from pure annoyance alone.

"It's the twenty third century. Can't we change genres to sci-fi already. Superheroes were overdone when I was born. We should be in the middle of a transhumanist sci-fi setting since we're way passed the technological singularity."

"You could just pull your strings in government and give Japan up to the Hexadecimal. Weren't you the one who got the great reformer Tanoguchi to be the prime minister and got his reforms passed in 2100?"

"Not all of the reforms passed through the Diet. I got the Open Immigration bill passed, but the Universal Basic Income one failed due to too many meddling politicians ruining the spirit of the idea, for example. Politics remains to be an annoying dance. The less headaches from that cesspit of nonsense the better." Hisashi turned away for a bit. "At least he managed to retake control of the government from the military or I would had dealt with a third general idiot trying to start a coup or some other nonsense." he muttered to himself.

Inko chuckled.

"Still, for a guy who hates to deal with politics, you sure do keep trying to meddle with it."

"Someone has to make sure idiots don't end up making things worse."

"As much as I support such volunteer civic duty, you have to take a break. That and if you keep playing around with politics that much you may as well just run for office and get paid for it."

Inko ended up chuckling, likely from seeing his look of utter tired disgust from the idea. There was a reason he liked pulling the strings from the shadows, less paperwork and inane nonsense to deal with. There was a reason he delegated much of his empire to his subordinates unless he had a personal eye towards a project or two. He was the type to send lobbyists to politicians, not the other way around.

After the buffet dinner, they all returned to watching Izuku practicing for the play, with some personal pointers from Hisashi.

The mention of Mitsuki trying to push for Katsuki to take up a different job did lingered in his mind, though what to job to try to lead Izuku to was an entirely different thing to deal with. Maybe a cafe, get a head start into business and management.

Katsuki Bakugou

"... that is why the current magical historiography placed the current era starting when quirks arose to be the start of the Second Heroic Age, in the Grecian sense." Leo said as Katsuki struggled to either fall asleep or strangle the damn cat.

"The major events of the early quirk years involved the multiple geopolitical, cultural, environmental, economic, magical, and spiritual crises of the time period. The Gods went into war among each other. The Nations did the same. The Beasts of the Primordial Id went wild in a feast due to excessive emotions during the period. The lay lines were flooded with magical energy. Japan, I heard, nearly went into either a second isolation period or an imperial expansionism before the current shogun dealt with the ultranationalists."

"I'm sorry, a shogun?" Katsuki asked. It's the twenty third century and apparently there's a shogun now?

"It's a rare event but it happens. There are those who just call themselves shogun and got the political power for it, and there are those who managed to get the Nihonkami himself to proclaim them to be shogun, which gives them more clout among the mystical side of things, especially if they got one or even both emperors to agree."

"Both emperors?"

Leo shrugged.

"The human emperor who descends from Amaterasu and the kitsune emperor of all yokai who descends from the ever shifting Inari. The shogun and his family is under the divine protection of the Nihonkami and lady Amaterasu. Luckily for us, the Underground Shogun never really bother with his power as the true lord of Japan in both human and mystical sides. Only when one was unfortunate enough to meet his ire. I heard Noppera-bou of the Ten Thousand Masks clan lost a potential heir for earning the shogun's ire." Leo shuddered. "No one knows what he did to earn it. Rumors say the guy lost his powers completely before being taken into the shogun's personal Yomi or something."

"Uh huh… and quirks existed before then?"

"In a manner of speaking. It was a lot weaker before the 2030's. It was a total mystery who gets magic beyond being the descendant of one, having the spark of genius, getting a powerful patron, a strong enough will to go against reality, and all that. The mystical societies are inherently reactionary but the more progressive societies did found some evidence of some unknown instability in the DNA that allow for a connection to magic, and a higher chance to develop cancer. But quirks are more genetically stable than the weak magics of before. Unfortunately, the mystical additions to the Mombasa Treaty by certain groups prevented further research on th-"

Mitsuki then burst in the room, interrupting the rather boring lecture.

"Hey! We don't have all night! You can bore Katsuki to death like you did me all those years ago later! He didn't need a magic cram school here!"

"He has to know these things since he got a target on him now!" Leo retorted.

"Then let's go do something fucking practical then!" Mitsuki grabbed Katsuki and pulled him to a door that wasn't there before at the end of the hallway. Leo followed behind them as they walked through the door. Inside was what looked like a training room with various magic things on the side. A library, a cauldron with potions, a fucking forge and armory, and a whole sparing area at the center of the room where his dad was training on what looked like a living being made of stone with glowing symbols on them. Symbols that looked vaguely familiar.

Katsuki looked at the sight, the shelves of books, the cauldron with shelves of potions and ingredients, an entire collection of archaic weapons and armor, some with glowing symbols on them, then finally on his father with his suit of armor on dodging the punches of the stone golem.

"When the fuck did my life turned into a fucking D&D campaign." Katsuki rhetorically said as his father then slashed at the golem in blinding speed. He landed behind the golem and by the sheathing of his sword, the golem collapsed into bricks before fading from existence.

Mitsuki rolled her eyes.

"Dear, stop trying to show off and breaking our kid's head on what's real and fictional."

"Can't I try to show our son his old man can actually help him train for that pro hero job he's striving for?"

"Eh, you got a point there." Mitsuki said as she led Katsuki to the sparring area while Masaru absorbed his armor back and stabbed the sword through himself for safe keeping. "This here is a magical pocket dimension I managed to make when I was in college. Helped a lot in hiding all the magic junk, if it wasn't for Koko covering up for me, I might had gotten trouble for the potions. The forge and armory's your father's thing. Well, we should at least train you with your magic at least."

"Fucking finally." Katsuki muttered, grinning at the idea of defeating villains with this power as he looked at his hands.

"However, we need to set some ground rules. Unless you can explain it away or cover it up, do not, at any circumstance, use your magic so obviously."

"What!? You're the one to talk! You fucking fight crime with no disguise and in a fucking pink and white frilly costume!"

"That's cause your mom is a member of the Court of Swords and all members of the Courts are given a kind of protective glamour." Leo said, "Unfortunately, you're not under any protection at the moment so the public will notice. To be honest, this whole filtered masquerade deal is annoying but it's still there due to stubborn traditionalism and paranoia about what plots the enemy left behind."

"Enemy? What, there's some sort of dark lord shit trying to take over the fucking world now?"

"Eh, that's ancient history now." his mom said, "Everyone realized who was causing the world to go to shit, teamed up and stopped it, well, from what I heard it was 'kill it' then 'kill it in the afterlife to make sure it stayed dead'. Anyway, we need to see how you'll use your magic. You'll likely use your explosions to hide it but we need to know what type of magic you're leaning towards. Let's start with Light magic. It comes from the collective will and desire for improvement. There are two paths for it. The right handed path is the improvement of society. The left handed path is the improvement of the self. Close your eyes, think of what you want, and let it come out."

'Think what I want huh.' Bakugou thought as he closed his eyes. 'What I want? That's fucking simple!'

"I want to be the best! The number one hero!" his hands glowed brightly from that. When Katsuki opened his eyes, he saw his mother's deadpan look at him.

"Of course, I shouldn't be fucking surprised." his mom said as Katsuki looked at his glowing hands.

"Ok, I got the shit turned on, now what?"

"Eh, I mostly free styled my magic and only bothered with the formula and ritual when I needed to. The easy ones are speeding up one's healing a bit, making your attacks more powerful, and making your defenses stronger."

Katsuki raised an eyebrow at his mother.

"So, self-heal, attack buff, and defense buff?"

Mitsuki shrugged.

"Just make sure you don't tire yourself out by using too much power and making people suspicious. Probably time momentary flashes of magic with your explosions." Leo added.

"We should ask Tokoyami if he could train with our son. They are the same age and he's trained in magic for much longer." Masaru suggested.

"The problem is that he's a Beast of Fear. Light magic is different. His is based on primal fear while Katsuki's is based on improvement." Leo countered.

"Look here you damn cat, my son needs as much help he can get when this ice bitch is gonna go after him." Mitsuki growled.

"I'm fucking standing over here with fucking glowing holy paladin light bulb hands! Are we gonna train me how to use this beyond being a fucking flashlight or what!?"

"Right, it is getting late." Mitsuki said before the first day of training began.

Izuku Midoriya

"That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die." the foreign literature teacher started the lesson on cosmic horror as Izuku took down notes.

Yukiyama wasn't around today but the teacher said it was okay since she had a doctor's appointment today.

Kacchan looked tired. Probably from getting ready for the school festival, everyone was. Though, he did look brighter than before. Could be some facial cream or something.

He decided to ask him during lunch on the school roof.

"So," he started as he ate his meal from the bento box, "did your mom forced you to use a facial cream or something?"

"Eh? What the fuck do you mean by that?"

"You look brighter than before."

Kacchan's eyes widen from the comment before glancing at his hands. They did look suppler now.

"Your mom forcing more beauty products on you or something?"

Kacchan grunted in annoyance.

"What I use isn't your fucking business, Deku. What, you want to use the same products or something?"

"No! No. Just curious, that's all."

"Fucking too curious for your own good, you know that. You probably give auntie a heart attack if she knows that you chase after villain attacks after school."

Izuku chuckled in embarrassment.

"Well, she does know about that. Dad too."

"And you're not banned from doing that shit?"

"You know me Kacchan. It's either I go to trouble or trouble finds me. Remember the incident at the noodle shop?"

"We agreed to never mention that fucking incident." Kacchan then turned around. "Fucking guy made out of noodles ruining my lunch." Izuku heard him mumble.

"You're gonna ruin my lunch if you kept reminding me of that incident."

"You're the one who started talking about it!"

"Fine, fine, I'll stop. I'll stop. So, got something in mind for the talent show or are you going to keep it a surprise?"

"The what?"

"The talent show. You told me you were signing up for it. I saw you didn't signed up for it so I placed your name on the sign up sheet."

"Ah, fuck, that shit."

Izuku rolled his eyes.

"Yes Kacchan, the mandatory event that every student has to do something for every year."

"This is coming from the guy who half assed his way into winning the chess tournament in last year's school festival. You weren't even trying."

"Kacchan, it's chess. Me not even trying would be me flipping the board at the start."

"Let's not forget how you beaten the go team multiple times when someone dared you to play one game."

"Not my fault they were all stubborn to get one victory from me. The possible choices for moves makes for really interesting math."

"Only you would find analyzing a board game to be fun. Well, I'll probably do something awesome for the talent show at least."

"You have no idea what to do for the talent show, aren't you. I hope you're not gonna show off your explosions on stage. That's not really a talent. It's like the tallest guy in school going on stage and say his talent is being tall."

"I fucking know that! Do you think I'm an idiot, Deku!?"

"I'm just saying you can't just go on stage and expect to do something amazing on a drop of a hat. You need to show off something interesting. Singing and dancing are good choices."

"Eh? And be like all the other extras?"

Izuku gave a deadpan stare at Katsuki.

"Kacchan, acting like a shonen protagonist doesn't really work in reality."

Kacchan returned the deadpan stare at Deku.

"Deku, we have AI overlords, superheroes, super villains,and who knows what else. We may as well be living in a shonen anime. Which might explain why that genre died out centuries ago. Gets boring when it's the world you're living in."

Izuku chuckled.

"Or maybe they're still making them but everyone thought they were documentaries, even something as blatantly fictional like a magical fantasy series."

Kacchan couldn't helped but looked out pass the chain fence of the roof of the school building.

"Yeah, blatantly fictional…" he said in a strange calm tone.

Izuku felt he was missing some important context for that. He shrugged and returned to his lunch. Kacchan was probably struggling to figure out a way to get out of the talent show or something.

After school, the two headed out to browse some stuff at a small store before bumping into Yukiyama.

"Oh, hello there!" she say with a friendly smile.

"Oh, Yukiyama, I heard from the teacher you were sick today. Are you feeling better-"

"YOU!" Kacchan practically roared at her.

Yukiyama screamed in fear and hid behind Izuku.

"I-I'm sorry Bakugou!" she shouted as Izuku tried to calm her down. That's where he noticed them. Bandages on her arms, some fell off when she freaked out, showing familiar burn marks on them.

Kacchan couldn't.

He could.

He definitely could.

"Kacchan. You can go ahead." Izuku stated.

"Deku, she's fucking dangerous! She-"

"I said you can go ahead!" he shouted as he looked at Katsuki with a glare. He looked back with wide eyes before grunting and head out.

"Be careful. She's not to be trusted, Deku."

"I'll see about that."

Once Kacchan left, he sighed and helped fix the ruined bandages.

"Did Kacchan did this? Was that why you got a doctor's appointment today Yukiyama?"

"Yes, thank you." she said as they left the store and she led him to a park bench to sit down. "I tried to tell him of my crush for him but he just exploded on me." she began to cry. "Said some awful things to me. I tried to calm him down but, well, after that he just left me alone."

Izuku groaned.

"Kacchan, you can't be the number one by being like that." he muttered to himself. "So, Yukiyama, did you join in the school festival? The class decided on a coffee cafe so if you didn't sign up, you can help out keeping the food and drinks cold."

"Oh, I was going to sign up today, but well, a cafe's also fun."

"You sure you'll be okay though?"

She placed her hand on Izuku's hand. It was cold to the touch.

Izuku couldn't helped but blush. He kept his hand still either way.

"I'll be okay." she replied. "After all, I got you to protect me." she smiled. Izuku's face got redder from that.

He wondered if his shaking was from Yukiyama's cold quirk or total embarrassment at this sort of situation.

The only other girl he talked to anywhere this close was Toga and she's not exactly a normal girl even with therapy. He was pretty sure quirks influenced the neurological and hormonal balance of the brain and personality. How would that work though? The chaotic fractal pattern that defined neurological connections and blood vessels? The neural pruning that happens during puberty? Can't be that given the young age when a quirk expressed itself. Not to mention that quirks were known to be genetic at some form, so it had to affect the creation of animo acids and thus the resulting protein chains. But how exactly did the unusual nucleotides develop when the DNA was made out of the original four ever since beginning of life itself from the primordial soup billions of years ago when the Earth was-

"Do you mutter your thoughts out loud a lot?" Yukiyama's voice brought a crashing end to his train of thought. Izuku simply covered his face in utter embarrassment.

"S-sorry! It's a habit of mine!"

Yukiyama simply laid her head on his shoulder.

"Don't be sorry. You sound like a smart boy." she then curled her hand on his hand. "I was suppose to sing a song for the talent show, but I missed the deadline for the sign up. Do you want to listen to my song?" she asked with a sad smile on her face.

"Sure thing. If it makes you feel better."

She began to hum to him a sorrowful song.

He found himself closing his eyes to focus only on the humming.

Tears began to leak out of his eyes.

He began to imagine, or was it remember, things in his life that made him sad, that put into question those moments of happiness.

He remembered Tenko when he came into the family, traumatized, living in the streets for weeks after the Fuyuki City Fire, how his family died right in front of him.

He remembered Toga before her uncle got custody for her, how she was abused for her quirk.

He began to imagine Kacchan sneering at him, bullying him, calling him a worthless Deku for years…

He felt cold…

He should had went with the original plan…

He felt alone…

The resources of the planet was enough to counteract the loss of possible observational data of the anomalies…

Completely isolated…

He was ready to ascend if it wasn't for his curiosity…

Completely-

The yowling of a mad cat and the sound of someone running away woke him from the hazy dream.

"H-huh? O-oh, I'm so sorry Yukiyama. I guess I fell- eh?" she's gone. "Where did she went?" on the bench where she was was a familiar cat with a mane. "Leo? What are you doing all the way over here?" Izuku asked the mini lion as he began to pet the cat. Izuku shivered as he still felt cold.

"Hey! You fucking cat!" Mitsuki shouted as she ran to Izuku. "Oh, Izuku! Fancy meeting you here. Thanks for catching Leo for me."

"Oh, auntie! Hi there." Izuku said as he lifted Leo up to give to Mitsuki. He shivered a bit.

She then placed a hand on his neck and forehead.

"You feeling okay there kiddo? You're cold and shivering."

"Oh, don't mind me. I guess that was a side effect of Yukiyama's quirk. She has a cold quirk so she couldn't help it when she lowered the temperature around her."

She looked a bit worried, but why?

She then pulled something from her pocket and placed it on Izuku's hand. It felt warm.

He looked down and saw a charm made to look like a fire.

"It's a good luck charm. I went to a temple recently and I thought I should buy some good luck charms for everyone. The whole usual spiel. Good luck, good health, good grades and all that well wishes."

Izuku chuckled as he felt warmer already while he pocketed the charm.

"Thanks for the good luck charm, auntie."

"Put it on everyday. It doesn't work if you just leave it at home. Well, since I'm here, how's about I drive you home? Leo finished his vet check up and he ran away soon after. Cats am I right."

Izuku chuckled as he nodded.

"Sure thing. Thanks auntie. I guess Yukiyama got scared of Leo. He does look like a mini lion after all."

He then followed her to the car and soon returned home.

He fell asleep on the way.

He dreamed of how to make things better for everyone, to help improve the world, to be a hero like All Might.

He felt warm.

Katsuki Bakugou

Back home in the still weird pocket dimension, Katsuki saw his mom and Leo returned from saving Deku and dropping him back home. He was already sitting down next to his dad and Birdbrain. Why he's there, he had no fucking clue.

Leo then leaped into the air and shapeshifted into quite frankly a lionman barbarian with the body and clothes to match. There's a fucking double sided battle axe resting on his now humanoid cat's back.

"The fuck is my life now." he muttered to himself while pinching his forehead as each new surprise just felt draining. He would explode in rage filled annoyance but he knew his family would explain everything in the end either way.

Still, exploding in pure pissed off annoyance was still on the table.

He'll probably use that on the ice bitch.

"So, the good news is that we managed to scare away little miss murderous sociopath before she really messed with Izuku's heart and mind with her Song of Despair. Another good news is that Mitsuki gave him a protection charm to him and his family. As long as they have it on them, her magic won't affect them. We might need to place a protection charm on their house, just in case." Leo said as he took a seat.

"That's good to hear. Did you dig anything up on Katsuki's mysterious transfer student?" his mom asked as she also took a seat with them.

With a snap of his fingers, a file appeared and landed on the table.

"I called on my old friend Shu for his help. Using the school photos, the rat found a match. Yamazaki Hanako, committed suicide as a teenager in the winter of 2103 after a double whammy of being dumped by her boyfriend and failing to get a high enough grade in her finals. She killed herself off in the Aokigahara forest. Most likely in one of the Deep Dark zones."

"You're fucking telling me I got an actual ghost girl in my school!?"

"More like a humanoid abomination empowered by despair and self-destruction that'll try to spread self-harm, despair, and suicide as much as possible, but yes. Basically that. She'll basically use everything she can to pull anyone down with her." Leo then looked at Katsuki. "She's also old. She'll likely find and call upon nearby Darkspawn for a big attack. When that happens, we need to send them to an altered space for everyone's safety before battling it out."

"You think she'll try to attack the school festival then?" his dad asked as he sharped his sword.

"It is rather obvious if that's the case." Birdbrain said while his quirk drank some tea. "We must be prepared if it is a trap for us. She attacks with a large force, we push them to an altered space, only to find that she left behind a small force to attack innocent people with."

"I fucking doubt that would be the case." his mom said after being quiet for a while. "Think about it. She's fucking old and thus gained power and control. But we started to stop her plans recently. She's not the type to fight directly and out in the open. She would only do that when she knows she can win. Other than that, she would try to corrupt and ruin people with her memetic song, influencing them to be their worse possible selves. She's a corrupter, not a direct fighter. Still, the question remains, whyy the sudden shift of plans. She was trying to get at Katsuki but now she's focusing on Izuku…"

"The fucking talent show Deku signed me up for! She sings in front of everyone and they get hit by whatever her singing nearly did to Deku! Also, why is Birdbrain here?"

"I'm here to help you train in the magical arts."

"I already got Leo and my parents. Why the fuck would I need you to train me?"

Suddenly, Dark Shadow flowed like water, surrounding Katsuki in utter darkness. He was hit by sudden fear and instinctively gave off explosions from his hands, augmented by his Light.

Dark Shadow retreated from Katsuki as Tokoyami winced in pain.

"Your family can teach you magic, true, but you need a proper way of training for combat. I am a Beast of Fear. Despite appearances, Dark Shadow and I are the same being. It is simply my nature to spread and feed on what I represent." Tokoyami then stood up. "There are five primal Beasts, each one representing a pure emotion of the collective id, in the same way that the Light comes from the ideals of the collective superego. Joy, Rage, Fear, Sorrow, and Revulsion, the five base emotions. These are morally neutral. A Beast of Joy can feed upon the ecstasy of committing murder the same way that a Beast of Fear can feed upon the terror of being in high places. Tell me Bakugou, have you stated your Motto yet?"

"My what now?"

"Your Motto is your statement upon the collective will upon reality. It is what your instinct, your nature, simply is. You have yet to fully awaken your magic. You are aware of it but you only applied it instinctively. You are wading upon the flood waters. You have yet to learn how to swim in it." Tokoyami then walked to the training area. "I shall help you enter that moment of realization."

Katsuki looked at his parents and cat.

"Go on you little shit. Tonight's his lesson for you." his mom said with a dismissive wave.

He just grunted and walked to the other side of the training area.

Tokoyami and Dark Shadow looked at each other and nodded.

"To help you understand. I shall reveal my Motto to you." the two then looked at each other.

"I am You." Tokoyami started with closed eyes.

"And You are Me." Dark Shadow replied.

"I am a Beast of Fear."

"I am the terror of the night." the two began to merge into one. Their voices seemed to overlap more and more.

"I am the shadow that comes after the setting sun."

"I am the darkness that comes after the death of stars." a mist of darkness flowed out of him, of them, spreading to the edges of the training area. A magical barrier seemed to prevent the mist from spreading beyond the line.

"I am the Fear of the dark."

"I am the Fear of what's within the dark." his appearance blurred into the solid shadow, looking more feral and wild as Katsuki fought back against the sense of growing terror within himself.

"We are one."

"And the same." they opened their eyes, revealing nothing but glowing circles of misty light. They cricked their neck.

"We are Nevermore." they then opened their fanged beak and roared. The inside their mouth was even darker than dark, a pure black that seemed two dimensional because of it.

If there's one thing Katsuki learned that night, he fucking hate magic.

Body sore despite his mother's healing spells, he laid on the bed for some much needed sleep.

It was then he remembered something he forgot to ask.

For a moment, when Deku turned back in anger at what he thought Katsuki did to the ice bitch, he saw something unusual. Deku's eyes were glowing an electronic green.

Katsuki shrugged. It was probably her magic influencing his thoughts and actions.

He closed his eyes and slept.

Hisashi Midoriya

Days passed and it was already the day of the school festival.

Hisashi checked and double checked everything. Everything has to be perfect for today. Izuku's villain outfit, a simple formal wear with a vest instead of a blazer and his unruly curly hair gelled into a slicked back hairstyle, was ready. His video camera's ready. His video camera drones were ready. His ingredients for the celebratory dinner was ready. He did hope he didn't forget anything.

The whole family was going to be there. His darling wife, his son, and himself would be cheering Izuku on the stage. Well, not loudly. He hoped his lessons on dealing with stage fright went through to him. It would be hypocritical to say that he didn't got scared since even he was struck by stage fright when talking to his minions way back when. It was something one managed after doing it for a while.

"I think that's it." he said as he recorded his son as they ate breakfast.

"Dad, if you're going to bring all those camera drones around, people would think you're a paparazzi." Tenko said.

"I am a media baron."

"Media baron or not, that is way too many cameras all over the place. Hisashi, I heard of helicopter parenting but this is ridiculous, even for you." Inko said as she pulled some camera drones to her hand and turned them off.

"But dear, we need to record this whole moment! Our little boy's growing up."

"One camera is enough dear. And no, don't try to hire professional photographers or something to record the whole play for you. It's a school play, not the production of Hamilton or Les Miserables or Hamlet or whatever popular theatrical production that came out in Broadway these days."

Hisashi sighed as he turned off the camera drones. What a waste of money. Maybe he could repurpose them later. At least he still had one hand held camera.

"You honestly think those three plays came out of Broadway in my time?"

Inko shrugged as she drank her coffee.

"I'm no theatrical expert here. Then again, you're the one collecting musical posters now." she then looked at her husband in annoyance. "Please promise me you're not going to build a new basement to house a collection of kitchen sinks."

Hisashi simply rolled his eyes.

"I am not going to build a new basement to house a collection of kitchen sinks." he repeated. Still the glare remained.

"That's a lot of hidden assumptions on that sentence dear. You're not going to use exact wording to hide anything."

Hisashi chuckled.

"Of course, I did marry one of the best lawyers in the industry."

She then blushed while everyone ate their breakfast. Izuku and Tenko did have a disgusted look on their face. Not sure why. Did he used baking soda by accident again?

The breakfast was wonderfully cooked, so he had no idea why his sons looked like that for a moment.

After breakfast, they all headed to the school for the festivities.

Izuku wanted to watch Katsuki in the talent show afterwards, not to mention Inko probably wanted to talked to Mitsuki. Tenko got his phone with him to play some games which left him to probably chat with Masaru for the day.

Masaru wasn't exactly a noticeable guy. In his opinion, Masaru was the unfortunate doormat when it came to his wife and son's more explosive personalities. Yet he gave off that oddly dependable aura that he had to watch himself from spilling too much when they were drinking and chatting. Somehow, for some irrational reason in Hisashi's opinion, Masaru would completely understand him if he were to ever complain about his centuries old annoyances being the undisputed leader of the Japanese criminal underworld. Irrational given how Masaru was just an utterly ordinary guy who looked completely oblivious to what's happening around him. Then again, given his explosive household, it was a miracle he wasn't made deaf yet.

"Well, it'll be a couple of hours until the school play. We might as well enjoy ourselves with the booths and the like." Hisashi said as he manually drove the self driving car. Call him old fashion but he still didn't fully trust them.

"My class got a cafe going on in the classroom. I'll probably head to practice some more for the play." Izuku said while Tenko played on his phone.

"I'll probably browse around and all that." he commented.

"More time for me and Inko then." Hisashi chuckled as they soon arrived at the school. Given the fun everyone was having, it'll probably be a completely ordinary day.

Katsuki Bakugou

Today was the day, the calm before the oncoming storm.

Everyone was having fun, not knowing of the danger they're in.

Birdbrain and Leo's contract warned them ahead of what was happening in the magic world or some shit like that.

Invading army demons of darkness or some shit was gathered.

"Ready for the talent show?" dad said as the family, and cat, arrived the school grounds.

"Why the fuck do I have to do that?"

"You know why. The spell was designed with imagery and movement in mind. At least be thankful we got the music ready to cover up the obvious." his mom said as she looked around. "Go ahead and find any stragglers. We'll set up the boundaries."

Katsuki nodded as he went to the stage area.

There he saw that they were setting up for the play.

Fuck. Deku looked like an actual suave villain going to do the whole evil monologue thing. Right, the play was happening before the talent show.

"Kacchan!" Deku said as he ran towards him. "We're still getting the play set up."

"I'm here to ask for the guy in charge of the talent show. Got my music for the whole fucking thing."

"Oh, he's over there by the sound system. Good luck on the talent show Kacchan."

"Same to you. Well, Deku, promise me, if I get late due to something happening, could you try to stall if for me?"

"Eh? Uh, sure? I guess so. Is there something you'll be doing today?"

"It's the fucking school festival, what else do you think I'm gonna do?"

"Ah, right. Well, I'll return to practice then. See ya at the talent show." Deku then ran off to the other actors.

Katsuki wondered what the world would be like if the ice bitch managed to turn Deku evil, for some strange unknown reason. He couldn't imagine it. Deku was Deku. He'll probably weaponize his tears or some shit like that than anything really evil.

Still, it bothered him why the Midoriya family was the target now. Deku's dad was a media baron and he got that terrifying aura sometimes but it wasn't enough to be a target. He did guessed that he was a yakuza boss or something. No one wore a suit all the time, even at home, and he remembered reading at how yakuza members used to hide their body tattoos since it was something yakuza used to do, before heroes and cops rooted them out.

Even so, it still made no fucking sense why they're being targeted now.

Katsuki sighed as he went to the sound guy and gave him his song for the talent show before heading out.

That was when he saw a familiar ice bitch skipping along to the exit.

"Oh no you fucking don't." he said as he ran after her.

Inko Midoriya

Inko was having a wonderful time at the school festival with her husband.

They went to Izuku's classroom and had some iced coffee before they went to some games to play together.

It was a wonderful time.

Practically a date.

Then she felt it.

A familiar wave of a growing bubble of altered space-time.

'Altered space? Here?' Inko thought. It definitely explained why she didn't bumped to Tsuki yet. She bit her lip. Should she go to help her or stay with her husband. Tsuki could handle what might happen, especially with Masaru and Leo with her.

She looked at the people having fun at the school.

'If anything escape the altered space, it'll be a massacre.' she clenched her fist. 'Can't let that happen.'

She turned to her husband as he tried to win a prize from the goldfish scooping game. She sighed.

"Hisashi, sorry but I got a text from the office."

He practically pouted at that.

"Can't it wait?" he whined, in his own way as he stopped playing the game.

"No, important case and all that. I just got an update on the files and it's apparently all hands on deck."

Hisashi growled.

"I am so tempted to just buy the firm and give you a vacation."

"You could do that but then you'll end up having to work with me and read through the whole Japanese Tax Code and multiple corporate terms and conditions to see if they're legal."

If there's one thing that she knew would repel her husband like a warding charm, it's paperwork. That and his groans of undead anguish was just so cute.

"Be sure to record our son's play for me." she gave a kiss on his cheek as he smiled and gave her a hug and a kiss on her forehead in return.

"I will. Good luck on the whole legalese wizardry." he then let go.

She waved before she walked away. Once she felt she was far away in the crowd, she went to a restroom and entered a stall.

She raised her hands and pulled upon the fabric of time and space itself.

In a flash, she appeared in the altered space.

She tied up her hair to prevent it from blocking her sight in the coming massacre.

Her husband had his hobbies. Why can't she?

She walked down the empty hallways of the school and saw through the window at the area outside of the school's field. It was a siege as a host off them clawed at the protective boundary Tsuki probably placed.

And even so, many monsters of that sludge like darkness was lurking around the area, that managed to break through the barrier.

It was simple to eliminate them.

Despite their appearances, they're still made in human form. All she had to do was pull at the brain stem out, the blood vessels, the trachea, heart, and more then it'll dissolve back into nothing.

She ran to the field and saw them.

"Koko! What the fuck are you doing here!?" Tsuki shouted, still in her casual clothing as she readied her magical key chain.

"I felt the altered space appear and came here to help! What did you think I'll do? Wait until one of these things appear and attack the school!?" she shouted before pulling the brain of one monster through its eyes.

"She got a point there dear. Can't ruin the festival for everyone." Masaru said, already in armor with his sword and shield, slashing and stabbing at the stragglers.

"Where's your brat!? He should be here by now." Leo roared as he slashed at one monster with his double sided battle axe.

"How the fuck should I know!?"

"Wait, you told Katsuki about this?"

"Yeah, well, he got himself targeted by the undead crazy bitch who summoned all these things here."

"Maybe she caught up to him on the other side?" Inko asked before the ground began to shake and a wall of the school burst out in fire and ice. There Katsuki was flung out, towards the monsters beyond the barrier.

"FUCKING BULLSHIT!" Tsuki shouted, activating her magic. In a flash of light, she changed into her frilly magical girl outfit and leaped up into the air to save Katsuki. She landed back as everyone readied themselves for the coming battle.

"That fucking ice bitch." Katsuki muttered as Tsuki healed the bruises and scratches on him.

Masaru readied his sword.

Leo readied his battle axe.

Inko readied her hands.

Tsuki let her son stand as he looked at her in surprise.

"Auntie!? You know this shit too!?"

"Of course I do. I was the one who rescued Masaru with your mom and Leo's guidance."

"She's here." Leo stated as a young girl with pale white skin floated in the air through the hole on the school.

She looked down at them with her black eyes. Her pure white hair waving in the air as if she was underwater. She raised her hand and the protective barrier began to crack like glass.

"My armor is my skin." Masaru started as his voice began to sound like a hollow echo. "My shields are my arms. My swords are my hands. I am the steel forged in battle. I am the sentinel that shall not rust. I am the Darksteel General."

"I am Leo, the ever burning lion of the western zodiac." Leo said as his mane and tail tassel burst into flame. "Not everyone gets a fancy motto. Simple is always better." he said to Katsuki.

"You got a motto as well auntie?"

"No. Sorry to disappoint. I'm just a hobbyist on this compared to your family."

Katsuki simply looked angry as his hands glowed in light.

The barrier shattered and the battle begun.

Hisashi Midoriya

Hisashi tried his best to record the play with his hand held camera.

He was annoyed at the fact that his wife was missing Izuku being a proper menacing villain upon the stage. His posture, his glare, his smug and dismissive tone. It reminded him of himself when he was younger.

"The heroes are ready to fight me?" a malevolent laughter. "Oh how quaint. It will be fun to ground you down to dust. This foolish idealism will be the death of you heroes."

Then the choreographed fight scene. The heroes get defeated but rescued at the last minute by a passerby, a bystander who used their quirk to distract the villain.

Hisashi knew the plot. The bystander ended up as a new hero of the team and helped securing the victory over the villain in the third act.

But he knew that a good villain made the story memorable and he cooed at his son being an excellent villain.

As much as he loved to make his son follow in his footsteps, he knew how much his son was obsessed about heroics, to an unhealthy degree in Hisashi's opinion.

Hisashi sighed from the thought. His son's lost villainous potential was practically unsalvageable. If he tried, an annoying blonde brick would try to stop him.

Perhaps business and management wold be for the best…

Katsuki Bakugou

If this was what a zombie apocalypse was like, he understood the urge to just murder everything.

It was a horde of monsters that everyone was killing off easily.

But Katsuki knew what she was planning. Weaken everyone, overwhelm them, while she's free to sing her song at the talent show. She could hear her humming already, safe in her ice bubble.

He was just punching and exploding the things dead.

Auntie was pulling brains and hearts out en masse, which made him really wonder about what the fuck the Midoriya family was really hiding if Deku's mom could casually murder people with the twitching of her fingers like that. Definitely yakuza, had to be. Heroes were gaining on them so the yakuza boss and his top enforcer quietly went into hiding and acted as a normal family. There was no fucking way for auntie to be this causal in causing very precise mass murder.

His dad was throwing swords and knives around like his arms were hiding a whole army's arsenal. He also thrown buckler shields into the air that acted like buzz saws at the monsters.

Leo was breathing fire on the horde as he fought with his battle axe.

"Fucking get that ice bitch!" he shouted as her humming continued. He felt a cold breeze.

"I fucking know that! I can't target her since her fucking minions are keeping us busy!" his mom shouted as she did something with her sword, casting spots of light at the ground. They exploded like mines.

Exploded…

He looked at his glowing hands. They shone brighter like in agreement.

"Watch out Katsuki!" his dad shouted as he then leaped and sliced a monster in front of Katsuki in half with a metal tower shield slammed on the ground. "Focus on the battle first!"

"R-right." he then returned to the battle with his explosions. Ice bitch didn't have infinite minions after all. She had to run out eventually.

But her humming was getting louder. If they don't find a way to beat her soon, who knew what might happen.

Tenko Midoriya

Tenko clapped along with his dad and the rest as the actors all bowed on the stage.

Izuku was great on his role in the play. Still, Tenko couldn't help but thought Izuku was typecast due to the original comic was about a villainous quirkless man trying to eliminate anyone with quirks through robot enforcers. It got edited through the centuries. He doubted the source material for the play was anything like the original comic.

Most of the audience stood up as the stage was being prepped up for the talent show.

Tenko just returned to his phone. His programs made it so his support to his team looked like a video game.

Red and Gold was busy looking into Usoyev Inc, one of the Big Five global megacorporations, and their suspicious dealings with VILE. Apparently they found evidence of technically illegal oil extraction in Arctic Custodians territory disguised as cleaning up of the abandoned oil rigs and protecting the local environment, with VILE taking a cut of the oil profits.

"This is gonna be a tough one Red. Corporate politics is messy and if this went public, Morgan Industries will try to take them over to continue with their plan in monopolizing the energy sector. Fossil fuels may be dead in the energy sector but we know Morgan Industries anarcho-capitalist seat on the World Ideological Council might make it come back into prominence." Tenko said on his collar microphone.

"Which is why we need to figure out who to give the info to. Amazonia's a likely choice. They have a seat on the council as the green ideological representative. Given both Amazonia and Morgan Industries pacifist stance, they might agree to focus on green economics in return to open markets in Amazonia." Red replied.

"You have to remember that Amazonia and the Arctic Custodians were founded by members of the old Eden Initiative. They might still consider each other allies despite the distance. Amazonia could tell them about the oil rigs and possibly cause a political flashpoint."

"Don't worry about that Dust. Gold's looking at our options as we speak."

"Let me guess, Gold's going to cast his divination spell to see what would happen in the future? We'll be lucky if he rolled a nat 20."

"Now Dust, Gold's predictions didn't failed us that much."

"That's cause they're ultimately guesses. He's just lucky most of his predictions happened the way he roughly guessed. As much as I like magic to be real, this is the real world we're talking about here, Red. Not a campaign out of Dungeons and Dragons. It's like hearing my aunt when she gave my family some lucky charms from a temple. Like my dad sometimes say, I prefer making my own luck than just hoping it'll get better."

"Agree to disagree then Dust. Anyway, is there anyone coming to try to catch us?"

"Nope. It was a clean extraction. Security algorithms fooled and the local weather helped in hiding the boat."

"Please and thank you. I'll call you back once we reached the Nordic Federation. We'll figure out what to do with the data from there."

Tenko ended the app and call as the talent show began.

Katsuki Bakugou

The field was gaining frost all over as the ice bitch sang her song, trying to freeze everyone.

There were less monsters around but everyone was reaching their limit when it came to their stamina.

"Think you can pull the ice sphere apart Koko?"

Auntie just shook her head as she shivered.

"As much as would like to, that's too big for my quirk to manage. Probably too thick for me to handle anyway."

Dad and Leo was already protecting them from any attack. Ice spears blocked by shields. Monsters defeated by Leo's flame and battle axe.

Auntie checked her watch.

"The talent show must have started by now."

Katsuki looked at his dull but still glowing hands.

He can't let this lazy ice bitch win.

She's a corrupter. She toyed with her prey. She didn't fight fairly. She probably had plans to counter what plans they could come up with. She's completely weak once her defenses were down.

He grinned maniacally at the realization.

His hands glowed brighter and brighter.

The Light then began to spread from his hands.

"We just need to smash through her ice sphere and she's fucking toast."

"Easier said that done. It's probably a meter or two thick by now." Leo shouted.

"That's where you're wrong! The Light is empowered by the will to improve right? I will fucking smash that ice ball open and beat the hell back into her!"

Her song turned louder, causing a sudden blizzard and the thickening of the ice ball.

Katsuki laughed as that meant he was right.

"I am of Fire and of Storm!" he began instinctively.

"I am the reaction of existence!" he was enveloped by the warm light.

"I am the scream upon the silence!" he exploded up into the air.

"I am the unstoppable force that shatters the immovable object!" he clenched his fist and it formed a sphere of magically boosted nitroglycerin around it.

"I am the Explosion King!" in an explosive burst, he roared and punched through the thick ice sphere and through the ice bitch herself.

The ice ball then exploded in light and flame as it rained in tiny ice shards falling like snow.

They floated in the air for a moment as she coughed out that gross sludge.

"You're smarter than you look." she said as she seemed to aged in seconds into a saggy old woman. "I wonder if you're smart enough to figure out what I figured out." she chuckled before she faded into nothing.

The monsters faded away without their puppet master as gravity suddenly took notice of Katsuki and applied itself once more.

His mom saved him as she caught him in the air with her magic floating power.

Everyone came to him.

"You feeling okay there Katsuki? It could be traumatic, dealing with a strong darkspawn like her." auntie said as he processed what just happened.

He then began to laugh.

"I did it. I fucking did it! I actually got a fucking power boost and saved the day!"

"For fuck's sake, he's gonna be even more insufferable now." his mom groaned. Auntie simply smiled.

"Well, we better get ourselves ready and set up a strong enough alibi. Tsuki, I need you to clean up my clothes then make it look scruffy looking. Katsuki needs to get ready for the talent show. I'm sure Masaru and Leo would be taking care of any stragglers around the area."

His mom just nodded in agreement. Both his dad and his cat had already left to search for any remaining monsters.

Katsuki just looked at auntie Inko in a new light. He's more sure auntie was a top enforcer for the yakuza now.

In a couple of minutes, everyone was at the restroom, all cleaned up with auntie Inko looked like she was busy working. Leo was a normal cat again but he decided to skip the talent show to contact with that Shu fellow of his.

"Ready?" his mom asked, to everyone's agreement. With a snap of her fingers, the altered space was dispelled and they returned to the real world. No one was in the restroom and they returned to the event.

"We already stopped the ice bitch, why the fuck would I need to be in the talent show doing that number?"

"It's for the alibi. Also, it's mandatory and would look poor on your record when UA looks at it." auntie replied.

Katsuki groaned at that.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure you missed your spot so they skipped over you by now." his dad said but when they reached the event area, they saw Deku casually juggling knives with his eyes closed on the stage.

"What the fuck? Oh fuck, I told Deku to stall for time just in case."

"Then you better get your ass on the stage and end the stalling before Koko gets a heart attack." his mom said as she held auntie back from running to Deku.

Deku probably saw him ran to the stage since he decided to do a finale by throwing the knives in the air and catch them with his hands and teeth.

Deku then opened his eyes and bowed while the audience cheered.

Katsuki readied himself as some extras cleaned up the stage. Deku waved at him as he went to his family in the audience.

"Izuku! You are grounded for a week! The same to you Hisashi!" auntie Inko shouted. "In what state of mind was 'let me teach Izuku how to juggle knives' a totally normal thing to do!?"

"Uh, right, after that exciting interlude from Midoriya Izuku, the next contestant for the talent show, Bakugou Katsuki." the judge said.

He went to his spot on the stage with an old microphone ear set on.

Then the fucking peachy pop music began to play.

Katsuki then began to sing and dance a fucking boy band number.

He swore if he somehow ended up transforming into a magical boy or some shit like that, he's gonna take no witnesses.

Luckily for the school, he didn't transform into a magical boy, or end up wearing a frilly girly outfit at the end when he had to do a dumb pose to complete the spell.

He also thought that the whole 'magic spell made up of dance moves' was complete bullshit everyone planned just to screw with him. At least it was all over.

At the end, Deku won first place despite not being a contestant with Katsuki at second place.

It was annoying as fuck but Deku's dad apparently recorded the whole stalling Deku did, which included singing opera numbers, playing complicated pieces on the piano, violin, and accordion, gymnastics, karate chopping a cinder block, juggling, knife throwing, riding a unicycle, juggling throwing knives on a unicycle, all with his eyes closed.

"Two weeks." auntie decided after seeing the video of Deku on a unicycle juggling knives and throwing them at a dartboard, bullseye every time. "You are both grounded for two weeks. Honestly, I went to the office for a few hours and when I came back Izuku was juggling knives. Knives! And neither of you thought it was suspicious?"

Tenko awkwardly chuckled.

"I thought it was all planned ahead. All part of the show and all that."

"We are having words on what is proper and not proper skills to teach," auntie Inko said to Deku's dad. "After you help me read through the legality of Ibarra-Foxcom's current terms and conditions with the Japanese Tax Code." she said with a sweet smile.

The suspected yakuza boss groaned like his soul was leaving his body from the idea alone.

Deku chuckled as he held the first place trophy.

"Uh, sorry for stealing your thunder Kacchan."

"I was the one who told you to stall if I get late. How was I to know you were gonna go overboard about it."

"Well, my parents are inviting your family for a celebratory dinner at my place. Dad went really overboard on cooking for me ever since I got the villain role in the play."

Of course he went overboard. He probably wanted to make you his yakuza heir or some shit like that.

Which he'll make sure won't happen at all.

As the two families walked out to the field area, heading to the parked cars, Katsuki heard Deku mumbling about something.

"Mi estas la ujo de la lasta invento de la homaro..." the fuck?

"Mi estas la kreita dio renaskita…" was Deku mumbling in Spanish or something?

"Mi estas la heredanto de la Krono de Singularo…" Katsuki placed a hand on Deku's shoulder, seemingly waking him up.

"Huh? Oh, what is it Kacchan?"

"The fuck you were mumbling about?"

"Mumbling? Sorry. I probably got a bit tired from stalling for too long. Well, we better get in the car. Dad cooked up a whole feast for tonight at home." Deku then ran off to the car, leaving Katsuki to wonder what the mumbling was about.

Leo

Leo wandered around town by himself.

He reached a familiar building and entered the usual room. Inside was a couple of people already sitting, playing their monthly game of poker. He leaped up and took his more humanoid form before taking a seat.

"I see that you were successful in defeating the latest problem on your end." Shu said as he dealt out cards to Leo.

"I sure did Shu. Even the kid's son got his magic awaken in the process. Gonna be hard to deal with since he gave the winning blow and the kid already got an inflated ego."

"My local name Leo. Do remember that." Shu said as Leo rolled his eyes. Shu and his mind games. No wonder Mao was against him all the way back in China. Shu was lucky Mao was a bit of a loner or he might had asked him and even Bast for help in revenge for that millennia old grudge. One that was long enacted and broken.

"Fine then Nezumi." Leo said as he placed some ancient drachmas on the table. "These would be good as collateral."

"It's Nedzu these days." the rat said as he looked at the ancient coins and nodded.

"Eh? How many names are you going to have?" Leo said as Uwabami passed a bottle of beer to him.

"Enough to keep myself safe. Neko still has it out for me, even after he cursed me to live a number of lives as a lab rat."

"Hmmm, that's your problem. Well, Sakamata, how about you? Getting used to living outside of that aquarium?"

"Going well. Rising up in the ratings." the orca said as he folded.

"Don't sweat about it. You'll move pass what happened sooner or later."

"I mean, we were freed from that curse that Amazonian eco-terrorist caused, well, mostly free." Uwabami said as she also folded. "At least the Foundation helped in covering up everything and giving us actual support. It's a lot better than what might had happened."

"And where's the lovely Cleaner now?" Leo asked. "Same goes for Selkie! That guy's a riot!"

Nedzu simply took a sip of his tea.

"The Cleaner was tasked to check on the four formerly cursed locations for any lingering effects. Last thing anyone wants is the new animals turning human or the curse spreading. The planet barely supported nine billion people centuries ago, let alone the potential ecological and ethical disaster that would happen if every animal on the planet turn human in one way or another. Selkie, on the other hand, received his boating license a few days ago and was off to be a sea rescue hero."

"I still think extraditing that woman back to Amazonia was the wrong move. Good for Selkie though, chasing after his dreams. Full House!" Leo said has he slammed his cards on the table. Nedzu simply showed his hand.

"Royal Flush. I win this round." he said as he took the pot.

Leo grunted as he took a big gulp of beer.

"I still think you're counting the cards in your head."

"I won't confirm nor deny that Leo. Besides, we play for fun than just winning."

Leo scoffed.

"This is coming from the rat who cheated on that race all those millennia ago."

Nedzu was simply quiet as he shuffled the cards and started a new round.

Izuku Midoriya

Izuku returned to class after the weekend and took his seat.

Kacchan was absent due to, from what his mom told him, overexerted himself for using too much energy in one go. He was probably exhausted from the practice and fighting his mom from using whatever make up that made him look bright for the pass week and on the stage.

The teacher told the class about Bakugou being sick before attendance was called up.

It was when it ended that was strange.

"Uh, sensei, you forgot Yukiyama."

The teacher looked at Izuku in confusion.

"Yukiyama? Midoriya there's no one in the class with that name."

"What? But she transferred here last week."

"Midoriya, I suggest that you stop interrupting the class with such nonsense. Now, we'll be learning about the formation of the Second European Union after the decades of European Skirmishes. Turn to page 264…"

Izuku was shocked at that. He ignored the snickering and muttering of his classmates as he pulled out his analysis notebook and looked for Yukiyama's pages.

When he found it, they were blank. The pages after it was filled but…

He closed his eyes as he placed a hand on the empty pages for a moment to think straight.

When he opened them, they were filled up once more with his analysis.

Yukiyama Hanako. Quirk: Yuki-Onna

Was it a memory alteration quirk? Is Yukiyama in danger? Was she kidnapped and made to forget who she was? How did the analysis returned from whatever happened to them-

"Midoriya, do focus on the topic at hand." his teacher interrupted his mumbling.

"Y-yes sir." Izuku said as he looked at his textbook and his classmates chuckled to themselves.

Location Unknown

Warning. Unusual infrasound and ultrasound patterns detected in the following videos. Potential informational hazard. Takedown and cloud scrubbing suggested.

Multi Talented Kid Wows Talent Show

Kid Overshadows Others in Local Talent Show

Talent Show Floored by Sudden New Contestant




Ignore warnings.

Clean up recent detection records.

Ignorance is Bliss.

Understood Mastermind.

Orders executed.

--------------

Time wise, Yukiyama was 'transferred' in Monday, the school festival took place in Friday/Saturday.

The Big Five are the five big sovereign corporations of the world, each with their own specialization in the world economy. They are Ibarra-Foxcom in electronics, Cassian Industries in heavy industry, Usoyev Inc in chemicals, Morgan Industries in energy, and Saayman International in agriculture. Out of them, only Morgan Industries is actually ideological in politics. Saayman International is more pragmatic and the other three doesn't really care that much in politics beyond their interests.

The World Ideological Council is the replacement of the old United Nations Security Council, mostly due to the lost of power traditional governments had in the early quirk years, the collapse of countries in civil war, and the rise of radicalism in all stripes. The United Nations still exist though heavily reformed in the passed centuries, like the fact that sovereign corporations and organizations have a seat in the UN General Assembly now. The seats of the WIC are chosen among the supporters of the ideology with seven permanent seats for the major ideologies and rotating seats for the minor ideologies. The permanent ideological seats are the greens, democratic socialists, technocrats, social liberal democrats, minarchist libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, and transhumanists.

The four cursed places were a zoo, a circus, an aquarium, and a research laboratory. Anthromorph was stopped before she struck a pet store.

The current world population in Izuku's time is more than 5 billion people.
 
Last edited:
Unconventional Meetings
Hisashi Midoriya

Hisashi waited at the Nightshade bar one night as Masaru arrived and took a seat next to him. Already Kurogiri poured a drink to the two fathers before going to pour another drink for another patron.

"So," Masaru started, "You needed help in something?"

Hisashi sighed.

"I heard you were trying to push Katsuki to your line of work."

"It was less push and more show off. I'm pretty sure Katsuki would just grab what he likes and use it for his future in heroics."

Hisashi rubbed his forehead.

"Of course. And I'm sure my son would do the same thing." Hisashi muttered as he took a sip of his whiskey.

"We both know Izuku doesn't exactly have the heart to inherit your evil empire."

Hisashi choked on his whiskey.

"Excuse me?" he asked after coughing the sharp alcohol out of his lungs, with Kurogiri cleaning the spill while keeping a close watch at Masaru.

"You know, your whole international media empire? The one that got its fingers in many pies around the world? Sure, on public record you simply have direct or indirect control of like eighty percent of the country's media industry while ignoring the fact that you also have ties with many other media companies outside of the country." Masaru said with a grin and a sip of his whiskey.

Hisashi made himself calm and worked out a way to redirect the suspicions.

"Now I have to wonder how on earth did you learn that? Aren't you a fashion designer or something?"

"It's the reason why I noticed all the media ties. I had to look at media companies to figure out who owns what, who had majority shares on where, and which media company gives my fashion its maximum visibility."

"This is coming from the guy who mostly designs military uniforms and armor." Hisashi said as he took a sip of his whiskey.

"I also do other fashion. I mean, I did design a whole suit of armor for the upcoming historical cosplay event."

Hisashi chuckled.

"I was around in the later years of people seeing cosplayers as being childish nonsense instead of being an ancient and honorable Japanese tradition. I don't know when the switch was but I still find that to be hilarious. I'm sure there would be more people dressed up as their favorite hero or their idea of what they think a historical person would be like with a quirk." Hisashi pointed out. Masaru shrugged it off.

"It's Specficon. I'm pretty sure the superhero genre got transferred to the non-fiction section centuries ago."

"If that's the case, then a good chunk of sci-fi also got transferred to non-fiction centuries ago."

"Still, I'm bringing Katsuki along with me. He needs to experience something outside of heroism."

"That I agree with wholeheartedly. Might dress up as an evil overlord or something."

"You could go out as a demon lord. Be all menacing perhaps, or maybe going for a simple suave look instead."

It was Hisashi's turn to chuckle at the thought.

"I'll keep the suit. It's my brand."

"And a fine suit it is. This time you kept it all color coordinated."

Hisashi groaned as Kurogiri refilled the glasses before returning to work.

"Don't I know it. Sometimes I wonder if I was the only one with a proper fashion sense in the family. Inko doesn't seem to see the difference between my ebony, onyx, jet, Charleston green, licorice, and black sets of suits."

"In your wife's defense, it's all black to her. She is a lawyer by trade."

"Tenko, on the other hand, likes to wear casual, while Izuku seems to have an ironic fashion sense, which he got that from me."

"Wait, you mean his shirts with the word shirt on them? He has your fashion sense?"

"Well, not on style and elegance that's for sure. I remember wearing those kinds of clothes back when I was young and poor centuries ago. Anyway, got an idea for my costume then? Something simple and goes with my suit…"

"We could go with something simple. The whole devil in a suit look. Some horns, maybe contacts."

"Might get my son in on the costume then. The demon king and his half demon heir."

Masaru couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"Reminds me of my old boss I worked for in high school. I worked for him for some years, going up the ranks and all that. He wanted his son to work with him but he went abroad and end up travelling with his friends. No one knows his relation to his dad though, didn't want the trouble at people knowing his connections, enemies and all that."

"You make it sound like you worked for the yakuza or a megacorp."

"What's the difference between the two these days? Anyway, yeah, the whole suave devil in a suit look, the kind where you look like you'll give a deal for anything the person wants." Masaru said as he took a sip of his drink.

"Isn't that what I already do for centuries now?"

"Then you got enough practice in playing the part. Might go around giving people fake business cards from Lucifer Morningstar or Faust or maybe Ama-tsu-mika-boshi."

"I'm not going that far with the cosplaying. I'm guessing you would though."

"Yeah, gonna go dress up as a whole samurai outfit. Armor, katana, the works."

"Well, we all have our hobbies."

"Other than Izuku, would Inko and Tenko be interesting in going on a con?"

"Inko got work to do, unfortunately. Tenko might but he'll probably pass on the cosplay."

"That's understandable. It's not for everyone. Still, he might enjoy the stalls and games at least."

"That he will. I'm surprised Katsuki agreed to go with you to that. Didn't expect him to be a speculative fiction fan."

"Father-son bonding and all that. Hmm, didn't you have a whole costume design phase some time ago?"

"Yeah but Inko sold the leftover fabric and the costumes I made in a sale."

"Too bad. And there might not be enough time for you to make a costume for Izuku at least."

That made Hisashi curious as he started to plan out a way to cram in the time using his quirks.

"Is that a challenge?" Hisashi asked as he took a sip of his drink.

"I mean, we already agreed on the whole simple devil debonair look for you." Masaru said as he refilled Hisashi's glass before refilling his own.

"And you got a costume made for Katsuki then?"

"No, not yet but I can definitely find a way to make something good for him to wear in time."

"How about a contest?" Hisashi said with a grin as he drank his glass in one swoop.

Masaru grinned at the sight.

"We'll go make our sons the best costumes in the con." Hisashi continued.

"And what does the winner get?"

"Oh, I don't know, a betting pool perhaps or something like that?"

"Hmm, how about a free favour from the other person?" Masaru suggested.

"Speaking my language I see."

The two soon laughed and drank the night away. Neither of them realized that when the other went home, they used their power to sober themselves up and smiled to themselves at an easy win.

Katsuki Bakugou

Deku looked like he was gonna pass out from all the extras that were surrounding him that lunch break.

"For fuck's sake! Can you people notice you're all crowding him!?" Kacchan shouted which caused the extras to back off and giving apologies. Most of them left while promising to talk to Deku later.

Deku did some deep breathes before returning to his lunch box.

"Thanks for that Kacchan."

"Whatever. Seriously, you got viral online and all of a sudden they all want to suck up to you." given what was on the viral videos, there wasn't any surprise why Deku got viral.

"Y-yeah, it's a bit overwhelming to be honest."

"You should have expected that when you ended up doing a whole opera and circus performance on stage."

"Anyone could have done what I did."

How Deku managed to sound so casual about that Katsuki had no idea. Partly pissed him off in all honesty though he won't admit that Deku got more talent in things other than heroics then himself.

"... you're fucking kidding me right? You sang a duet switching between two different voices, the whole Queen of the Night's Aria, someone commented on the video what it was, you did in fluent German, then some weird throat singing thing. I had to look at the comments to get what you were singing in that one. Traditional Mongolian throat singing, where'd you learn that I have no idea. You also played La Campanella on the piano, some Paganini on the violin, random polka music on the accordion like you're trying to be humble about that one. And that's just on the music bit and not everything from it."

Izuku blushed from that.

"People did all that before quirks were around Kacchan." Katsuki placed a mental note on that as Deku seemed to use that to explain why he could do the stuff he did. He would even gave examples of historical people who did it. "Marcelito Pomoy from the Philippines in the twenty first century managed switching between two voices in song just fine. People sang for their jobs in the opera. People did throat singing for centuries. People played classical music. People played the accordion. Nothing I did was that special."

That excuse would had work before but too many things Deku was just talented at once? That strained on possibility at least. Unless…

"Yeah, except people do those skills one at a time. Some master it in their lifetime. Deku, look at me and tell me truthfully that you, a kid fucking months before entering middle school, has the talent and the practice time to sing two voices in different octaves, learn fluent German, Spanish, and who knows what else, learn to sing a whole aria, train the lung capacity to sing a couple opera numbers, learn to balance on a unicycle, juggle knives, juggle on a unicycle, play the piano, violin, and accordion, the time to practice to play all those complicated music pieces, and have time to eat, sleep, and do schoolwork?"

Deku opened his mouth to respond, only for this eyes widening and moving around randomly as he fell in deep thought.

Katsuki watched Deku looking like he got hit with an error or lag as some drool began to drip from his open mouth. He closed his mouth and wiped the drool a moment later.

"Y-you're right Kacchan. T-there's no way I could manage all that. Y-yet I did. I was just so focused on stalling for time for you that I didn't really noticed what I was doing."

"... Deku, you did all that with your eyes closed. How the fuck can you be too focused on what you were doing when you didn't even look at what you were doing in the first place?"

"I don't know how or why…" Deku looked at his lunch box, trying to make sense of it. "I just closed my eyes and things fell into place? I don't know. Now that I think of it, it felt like I just let go? If that make sense."

"Let go?" the fuck does that mean?

"Like, when I close my eyes sometimes, it felt like I let go of my control somehow? Like I let things go automatically, to go with the flow so to speak…"

"Deku, you do realize people don't just do things perfectly when they close their eyes and let the fucking universe do things for them right?"

"I know! That doesn't make sense!" Deku shouted in sudden frustration. Something's not right with this scene. Were his eyes pulsing with a soft electronic green light?

Deku closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

"Ugh, this is giving me a headache." Deku said as he calmed himself down.

"Deku. Could it be part of your quirk?" Deku stayed silent and his eyes stayed closed.

"Maybe…" he said calmly. "Perhaps there might be more to my quirk than meets the eye… I mean, dad showed me that my DNA is unusual so we thought it was some sort of immortality quirk and how would you test for that? But… what if the immortality's a side effect?" Deku turned to face Katsuki, eyes still closed. "I mean, I don't want to end up getting kidnapped and experimented for a way to become immortal. You know what they say…" there was a moment of silence as Deku waved his hand in a circle for a bit.

"Ignorance is Bliss."

"Yeah, we're still kids and who knows what quirks could do." Katsuki admitted though he felt that he was forgetting something. Deku opened his eyes and returned to his lunch.

"I know right! I read an article about how quirks could develop in one's lifetime! Imagine, getting stronger with your quirk Kacchan. Hopefully you could manage to deal with the stronger recoil."

"Heh, you know I can deal with anything Deku."

The two returned to their lunch, chatting about how their dads seem to be trying to make costumes for an upcoming convention.

Mitsuki Bakugou

Mitsuki moaned as her back was massaged. Inko was with her since the two decided on a weekend spa day. That and it gave ample of time to chat.

"So… how's operation 'competitive husbands' going?" Mitsuki asked as Koko giggled while the masseur did his work.

"Hisashi's been at it on that old school sewing machine, and I mean old school foot cranked type."

Mitsuki whistled at that.

"I can imagine Masaru taking his out if he hears Hisashi was going with that direction."

Koko laughed, mixed with some pain from some muscles being pushed.

"Can you imagine what the other wives would talk if the homeowner's association learned of that? Our husbands having a 'who's a better manual sewing pro?' costume making contest? Honestly, shouldn't that be our position?"

Mitsuki made a fake gasp at that.

"I didn't expect you to be so traditionalist there Koko."

"My adoptive parents were born from the 1990's. My husband's from the 21st​ century. Before Izuku and Tenko, I was the newest person in the whole family."

Mitsuki laughed madly before shouting at her masseur for being too tight on the knot.

"Back in my day computers didn't come with fucking sass." Mitsuki said in a poor attempt at an old person voice. The two laughed it out for a few minutes.

"Honestly, who came up with that contest thing?" Koko asked as they calmed down.

"Masaru told me Hisashi came up with it. Guess he's bored out of his fucking mind or something."

"Are you suggesting that I can't entertain my husband's fucking mind?"

The resulting gasp was more genuine from that.

"If it wasn't for the fact that we're in the middle of a massage, I would be throwing my pillow at you for that Koko!" Mitsuki laughed.

"Still, you should have seen it. Hisashi was getting measurements, ordering fancy fabrics and materials, sewing together what's basically a hero suit for Izuku. He asked Tenko but he found the whole costume thing to be excessive. Though he did gave his own design. I doubt Hisashi noticed much what was in it."

"Oh? What was Tenko's preference?"

"That's the weird part. It looked more like a full body mercenary uniform or something. Like a high tech helmet with a tactical visor, color shifting fabrics, high quality body armor…"

"Sounds like Tenko's gonna commit a crime or something."

"Given the Midoriya tendency for the dramatic, I bet he thinks it's all for authenticity than actually anything useful."

"... bet some sort of villain attack is gonna happen in the convention center due to Izuku's luck?"

Koko glanced at Mitsuki while subtly gesturing at the masseurs, not wanting them to hear that direction of their conversation.

"Given his luck, I'm hoping for minor shenanigans than anything dangerous."

"Eh, they got their fathers with them for four days. What's the worse that can happen?"

"You're just asking for something bad to happen now."

Mitsuki rolled her eyes. Like anything would happen in a speculative fiction convention.

Hisashi Midoriya

It was the day of the convention and Hisashi internally simmered at the sight of Masaru in his and Katsuki's costumes, showing off and winning the challenge. It was a slim margin at least. Good to see that people still remembered the classics. He managed to make his Darth Vader costume in time. Izuku's Luke Skywalker outfit was good but compared to Katsuki's Skyrim inspired Nordic barbarian costume, it may as well be a bathrobe.

Masaru stood there in a rather authentic looking set of samurai armor, all in what appeared to be dark steel with strange decorative choices like a shield, a demonic mask in the same dark material, and a sashimono war banner on his back with an unknown flag, black with a grey crescent moon looking down like a partly open eye surrounded by a ring of chain made out of thirteen links.

Compared to Hisashi's costume, no one knew what he's cosplaying as beyond a generic looking evil samurai warrior.

"I see you went with an echo reverb in your costume." Hisashi said between his audible breaths.

"I'm surprised you manage to make that within the time limit." Masaru said with that hollow echo. The glowing LED lights behind the mask moved to make him look like he was glancing at him. How he managed to make it look like a pair of glowing eyes within a dark helmet, Hisashi couldn't tell. Likely some help from his fashion contacts. Parisian fashion was always out there.

"What can I say, I can be competitive when I want to." Hisashi replied.

"Dad, could you tone down the breathing noises? It'll get annoying pretty quickly." Tenko said in his costume, which honestly reminded of Hisashi in his time as proper agent for the Foundation, completely practical and mercenary than anything flashy like heroic outfits would be.

"I'll tone it down, don't worry about that." Hisashi lowered the volume of the breathing noises.

"That's good to hear. Should we split up or…" Tenko asked while glancing at the video game section of the convention.

"You'll go ahead. We'll be watching Izuku and Katsuki." Hisashi said as Tenko then headed to the video game section. Hisashi would be aware of where his kids would be either way.

"Come on Kacchan, I hear there's a hero section in the convention!" Izuku said, which only made Hisashi mentally groan at that fact.

"And lo, the demon king had seen the festering light upon his kingdom in needs of extinguishing. Doth thy lord call upon his retinue of warriors upon the foolish and naive heroes?" Masaru said in archaic sounding Japanese.

"Oh shut up." Hisashi said with rolling eyes.

"As much as we dislike it, people are writing superhero stories even in this day and age."

"Don't remind me. I'm reminded of having to delegate the whole translation of the recent comic book movie adaption months ago, the Avengers VS the Justice League. Shame that the old superhero comics went public domain ever since the companies went under. Nowadays people are putting their fanfics on the publishing industry."

"I believe the proper term is derivative works for those now."

Hisashi simply groaned.

"Sometimes I feel too old for any of this."

"That's the whole ennui for living for so long and going mad for any new or interesting experiences." Masaru casually said, "It's really more of a momentary bump unless you really fell deep into the issue."

"Didn't realize you were that good in psychology there."

Masaru laughed.

"Less on psychology and more having to deal with an old boss who loved to rant and dealt with the same problems."

"Makes me want to meet this old boss of yours now."

"Oh, that's unfortunate though. He's long retired and probably dead by now." Masaru said as the two followed their sons in the hero section.

"Too bad." Hisashi said with a tone of finality to it.

As they wandered around the convention center, limiting the times Izuku wanting to buy some rare hero merch or fan comics, the speakers turned on.

"To all Specficon conventioneers, we are proud to announce a special Q&A session with a special guest speaker in a couple of days." the announcer woman said.

"A special guest speaker?" Hisashi muttered. "Not to mention the vague timing? I'm sure they want it to be a surprise but it sounds more like they were forced to include a last minute entry into the schedule and given the vagueness probably the person intruding doesn't know when to properly enter as well…"

"Do you think it's All Might?" Izuku asked as he was also mumbling about something. Katsuki rolled his eyes.

"Deku, we're in a speculative fiction convention, unless All Might decided to surprise everyone about a novel he wrote or some shit, I doubt he's gonna be here, other than some big villain attack happening."

Masaru laughed.

"Careful not to jinx it. Last thing anyone wanted is a Nihon Furcon situation."

"Yeah, no wants a poison gas bomb going off in a crowded convention center by an anti-mutant terrorist group." Izuku pointed out. Hisashi wondered what sort of articles he's reading online.

"Ugh, those types of idiots. They even attacked some LGBT rallies way back when. I helped in doing something about that since the LGBT community is one of my supporters back when I was starting out."

"... that explains why you know how to act like a drag queen, dad. Also why Tenko had to delete a really old picture of you in a dress and makeup from the internet."

Katsuki shuddered with a look like he was trying not to hurl.

"Try not to scar everyone with that." Hisashi said. "It was the only way for me to get the support of some of the groups. At the time, the LGBT community was one of the many groups scapegoated in being the so-called cause of quirks."

"That's horrible to hear." Masaru commented. "First time I heard of this."

"It was during the martial law period, so the info was either destroyed or covered up."

Masaru shook his head.

"Of course it was." as he looked around, something must have caught his eye. "Ah, could you look after the boys? Seems that an old colleague of mine is around." Masaru then ran ahead. Despite Hisashi watching him and Masaru wearing a dark samurai costume, he managed to hide into the crowd so well that Hisashi lost track of him by the passing of someone in a large gundam costume.

"Well, that's something." Hisashi said. "Wonder what made him ran like that. I do commend in how he did the sound effects." Hisashi said to Katsuki. "He somehow managed to make his costume sound like a hollow suit of armor."

"Eh, my dad's apparently an armor freak so he probably practiced on that." Katsuki said as he looked away to the stalls.

"So, where should we check next?" Hisashi asked them.

"Let's look at the fantasy section." Izuku suggested and the three wandered the convention center.

Tenko Midoriya

Tenko did some exploration and browsing around the convention center. He did heard a commotion happening between a guy in a dark full plate knight armor and a guy in a headless horseman costume. But he was focused on the task at hand.

His programs told him where the meeting place was. A small cafe near the convention center.

He entered the place with the ringing of the bell by the door and on the counter in front of the barista was Red and Gold in their casual non-thieving wear, plus a woman with green hair.

He sat on the empty seat next to Gold.

"Ah, welcome to our cafe." the barista said with a smile. Tenko took the helmet off.

"Hi, uh, is there a menu?" Tenko asked as the barista gave him one. The menu was simple, a selection of hot drinks plus a way to have a more custom drink. "No cold drinks?"

"No, Chrono here only serves hot drinks." the green hair woman casually said, probably a regular.

"Hmm, I'll have a tea with lemon and honey then." Tenko said as the barista make his order. He glanced at Red and Gold's drinks, tea with milk and mint for Red, coffee with whipped cream topped with ginger bits and a cinnamon stick for Gold, judging from the floating bits in their cups.

"One Midsummer Night's Dream." the barista said as he returned with his drink, a simple black tea with a floating lemon slice. He paid for the drink and took a sip with a pinky up. The sweetness and sourness blended with the black tea rather well.

"Wow, that's some good tea." Tenko muttered as he placed his cup down. He then glanced at Red and Gold. "Uh, not to be rude but are you two RedPyre and HadesGold by any chance?"

"Oh!" Red said with a playful grin as she turned to face him. "You must be TealDustBastion right? Nice to see you face to face."

Tenko held back the shot of annoyance from that attempted code name from Red.

"Oh? This is the friend you were talking about Victoria?" the green haired woman asked.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Tenko asked.

"Oh, I'm Freya. I'm a novelist."

"Huh, a writer? Cool. You're rather nosy, you know that?" Tenko said, which made Freya laugh.

"I guess it's part of the job. Besides, your friends were here earlier and we ended up chatting."

"Well, I'm Victoria and the grump next to me is Oscar." Red said with a grin as she took a sip of her tea.

"I'm Tenko. Curious as to why you guys picked this place for the meeting."

"It's close to the convention center where Victoria's having a show, this place is on the route to the hotel we're staying, and it has good reviews online." Oscar replied before he took a sip of his coffee. "And those reviews were honest and not written by bots."

"Chrono doesn't use bots to make his place popular. His drinks make it popular enough." Freya said with a grin. Victoria stood up with her cup in hand.

"We should move to a more secluded spot. I mean, this is the first time we met face to face instead through voice chat."

"This is also your first time in Japan, if memory serves." Tenko added as he stood up with his cup, the same with Oscar as the three moved to a distant table. Freya seemed to stay in her place, chatting with the barista.

The three then took their seat.

"This is gonna be interesting." Tenko said. "So, what's the scenario?"

"We're here for business. The convention is part of the reason why we're here." Victoria started. "I am a professional singer and Oscar's my manager after all."

"And the flip side to that?" Tenko asked.

"We got a few hours before we'll need to come back but the reason we're here is in Fuyuki City." Oscar said as Tenko kept himself calm. "The data from Usoyev Inc revealed a history of backdoor dealings, particularly with the defunct Sokow Transnational oil refinery in the city." Tenko steeled himself despite the flashes of heat his mind was giving him. A sip of his tea helped in calming him down. "We're certain that there's more to it that meets the eye. Usoyev Inc still has ownership of the site where the oil refinery was, after the massive fire it was built over all hushed up on the details. From the VILE data, there's a secret basement level in the refinery that remained relatively untouched since the fire. It seemed to be a black site research lab dealing with genetically engineered bacteria that creates crude oil. We're pretty sure the research has went beyond oil making bacteria now." Tenko took a big gulp of his tea before leaning forward in deep thought.

"... do you think the fire was a cover up?" Tenko asked with some trembling on his hands.

"We're not sure but the cause of the fire was covered up by Usoyev Inc for unknown reasons. Which is suspicious." Oscar said as Tenko began to breath rapidly while some hot flashes hit him.

"Dust?" Victoria asked as she noticed the panic attack. "Dust." Victoria stood up and went to Tenko's side. "Dust!" Victoria shouted as she held Tenko's partly gloved hands and shoulder.

"S-sorry about that. I… I was a survivor of the fire."

"We're sorry for bringing that up, Dust." Victoria said.

"Don't be. I've been trying to figure out the cause of the fire for years now. Hacking databases to understand why…"

"Dust. I know that look. Are you sure about this? You want to go on the field with us? It might bring back bad memories." Victoria asked as she tried to keep Tenko calm.

"I'm certain. Besides, I always want to be on the field for once, that and they'll likely have an old and isolated network so I'll need to be there personally to hack into. It'll help in giving me some closure as well."

"Kid, you're rationalizing this." Oscar commented.

"Gold, just, let me have this. Just once, let me be there. I have to know. I need to know." Tenko said with a strained voice. Oscar sighed.

"Well, you got your gear ready then?" Red asked with some pats on his back.

"This whole costume's my gear. Managed to trick my dad into making it. Covers and protects me entirely, got some invisibility options, hidden drones and trackers, and the helmet got a tactical visor and internal screens. I already installed my programs into it."

Oscar whistled.

"How'd you managed to get all that from your dad? Some of the materials look like they'll cost a pretty penny."

"My dad's wealthy and is now a some two hundred years old house husband. He got the time and money for it. I was just lucky he decided to have a costume making contest with uncle Masaru and he didn't mind the costume design I gave him." Tenko said as he drank the last of his tea, calming him down. He then got up and placed the helmet back on. "Well, we better hurry and catch the bullet train to Fuyuki city before we end up late for your show."

Victoria and Oscar glanced at each other before nodding. They finished their drinks and headed out.

Hisashi Midoriya

Hours passed and the sun began to set in the distance. Katsuki decided to get his father from where ever he went off to. Fortunately he has his phone with him and Hisashi picked a nearby cafe to meet up before they headed to the hotel. He sent a message to Tenko and the reply was he that he would be staying a bit longer to see a show, to which Hisashi replied with a 'stay safe and out of trouble' message.

He doubted that Tenko got the Midoriya tendency for the dramatic like Izuku did but still. What's the worse that could happen? Tenko being banned from all future cons after causing a ruckus about video game lore?

As Hisashi and Izuku were about to cross the street to the cafe, a strange thing happened. A man in an undead knight costume was laughing, holding a dark knight helmet, and galloping pass on what looked like an armored mechanical horse made to look like a skeleton. Chased after him was the owner of the dark knight helmet sans helmet, nor a head from what he saw, on a motorcycle wielding an aesthetically fitting jousting lance.

"Damn it Dullahan! Give that back!" the strangely familiar sounding dark knight shouted.

The crowd watched the chase unfolded in confusion.

"That happened right? That wasn't my imagination?" Hisashi asked in confusion.

"A guy on a skeleton horse being chased by a headless jousting knight on a motorcycle?" Izuku answered.

"Honestly, the weirdest things happen in these cons. I heard last year there was a whole spontaneous musical number." a woman muttered next to him before the pedestrian light turned green and Hisashi held on Izuku's hand as they crossed the street.

They entered the cafe without incident and took their seats between a green haired woman and a person in what looked like an astronaut suit. Said person in the astronaut suit got a finger in her cup of hot coffee.

"Ah, you make the best coffee around." the astronaut said.

"Hello, welcome to our cafe." the barista said, who looked rather familiar to Hisashi. Hisashi glanced at the astronaut's finger in the cup with its slowly lowering amount of coffee.

"Her quirk makes it difficult to drink properly so she sucks up the coffee through her finger." the green haired woman explained. Izuku's eyes lit up as he connected the dots.

"Oh my gosh! It's the rescue hero Thirteen!" Izuku shouted with glee as he pulled out his quirk notebook and flipped to a specific pair of pages. "Can I get your autograph!? On this page specifically?"

Hisashi chuckled as Thirteen happily signed on notebook. He then turned to the barista and tried to recall why he looked familiar while placing the costume's helmet on the counter.

"Quite a hero fan boy there." the green haired woman said with a grin.

"So, where was I? Oh yeah, they finally started building the planned USJ in UA soon after I dealt with the paperwork." Thirteen said after she signed on the notebook and returned to her drink. "It's gonna be off the campus since I'm planning of having the Unforeseen Simulation Joint be used by police academies, emergency services training, and all that. Principal Nedzu helped in the planning on that side. Of course, it'll be a nice addition on funding so it makes sense for the rat and the board to support it."

"Izuku, we should order something." Hisashi said, waking up his son from his usual fugues when it came to heroes and quirks.

"Oh, right dad." Izuku said as the barista gave the two some menus. That's when it hit him.

"Wait, Chrono?" Hisashi said as the man chuckled and grinned.

"Took you a while to notice." Chrono said.

"Wait, you know Chrono?" the green haired woman said in shock.

"We were associates a long time ago. He used to work in Seattle actually. Surprised you moved here to open up a cafe." Hisashi said.

"You know me. I travel a lot."

"Heh, I do remember you making and learning all those fantastic drinks, except for alcohol. You never touch those. Hmm, I'll have what I had when I was dating Inko. I'm sure you know the recipe for that one."

"Wait, you met mom here?" Izuku asked.

"Well, we chatted in Chrono's Seattle cafe for a couple of days and we both loved the ambiance of the place, so very rustic 21st​ century feel." Hisashi looked around. The decor and the bricked wall choice was practically the same. "If I didn't know any better, you brought your Seattle cafe here." Hisashi said as Chrono returned with a cup of hot coffee with a floating sprig of mint and a honey stick.

"A cup of Black Magic for the media mogul." Chrono said as Hisashi chuckled. He grabbed the cup after paying for it and took a sniff. It smelled like last time he had a cup from Chrono. With a sip, it even tasted the same.

"Hmm, even after all these years your quality is still out of this world." Hisashi commented.

"Wait, media mogul?" the green haired woman asked.

"Well, since the cat's out of the bag, I'm Hisashi Midoriya, founder and CEO of the Midori Media Conglomerate." the woman looked at him in shock.

"W-wait, wait, wait, MMC, you're the mysterious immortal founder of MMC!?"

"Heh, not many people know about that."

"Except for those in the industry, sir, uh, I worked for one of your subsidies and ended up as a novelist for another of your businesses. I'm Freya, by the way." an awkward hand shake was made.

"If this happens a second time, I'll drink my coffee with my helmet on."

"Oh? A media CEO? Think you could pull some strings for the opening of the USJ?" Thirteen said with a tone of interest.

"Careful or I might throw some extra hoops for you to go through." Hisashi muttered in annoyance.

"Alright, alright, I can get a hint." Thirteen said with her free hand up.

"How about you kid? Want to order something from the barista?" Freya asked Izuku.

"No coffee, obviously." Hisashi added as Izuku thought about it. Hisashi glanced at Chrono and noticed a strange apprehensive look on his face.

"Hmm, I'll have milk with honey and mint." Izuku said with a smile. Chrono nodded and went to making the drink. Hisashi might need to talk with him later on that.

"One Milky Way for the young lad." Chrono said as he returned with a hot cup of milk with a honey swirl and a sprig of mint on top. Hisashi paid for the drink while Izuku closed his eyes, blew on the cup, and took a sip.

"Hmm, it's delicious." he said with a smile. "Tastes absolutely amazing."

"We're glad to be of service." Chrono said with a relieved smile. By long trained instinct, Hisashi could imagine a pin drop between the two.

"You got a very interesting name there mister." Izuku said in a higher childlike pitch, to Hisashi's internal annoyance. He sometimes wondered where Izuku picked up his grandfather's tendency to act as someone else. In hindsight, he might had a hand on that. "Chrono, meaning it's connected to time somehow. Is that your actual name mister? Not to mention you sometimes speak in plural but you're the only person here."

"Oh yeah, he does do that from time to time. I figured he was using the royal we or something." Freya added. Hisashi noticed sweat falling from Chrono's brow.

"Now Izuku," Hisashi interrupted. "No need to interrogate the barista."

Izuku pouted as he looked at him with closed eyes.

"Fine…" he said before taking a sip of his milk.

Only Hisashi noticed the held breath Chrono released.

"We should move to one of the side tables, can't hog the counter forever. I'll see you later Chrono." Hisashi put his helmet back on before grabbing his cup of coffee and, with Izuku and his cup of milk, headed to a free table of four.

"Well, I better head back to work. I'll see you guys next time." Thirteen said as she gotten up and left the cafe.

Hisashi chuckled as Izuku looked at the hero signature on Thirteen's pages, still written in his code.

"You should really tell me what your code means one day, son."

"Don't worry dad, I'll write a code book for you."

Hisashi chuckled as he then took a sip of his coffee before checking his antique style digital watch.

"What's taking them so long?" he muttered.

The entrance bell rang and Katsuki and Masaru in their costumes covered in dirt and leaves entered the cafe. Hisashi looked at the two in shock as the Bakugous took a seat. At least Katsuki's Skyrim inspired Nordic barbarian costume still looked good and with little need of cleaning.

"... what happened to you two?" Hisashi asked.

"Met up with an old colleague of mine and he's still a prankster. Ended up chasing him around the convention center when he took a part of my costume for a laugh." Masaru said in his echoing tone from his samurai costume.

"I ended up chasing after those two." Katsuki added.

"Well, we better order something while we wait for Tenko and-"

The entrance bell rang as Tenko entered the cafe and took a seat.

"Hey…" he said in some thought.

"Had a great time?" Hisashi asked.

"Yeah, Might need to browse around the place again tomorrow. A friend of mine's performing for the convention later."

"We should get out of our costumes and eat dinner first."

"After we finish our drinks, dad." Izuku said as he took a big gulp of his milk and emptied it.

"Of course." Hisashi said as he took his helmet off, finished his coffee, and put his helmet back on. "So, hotel first for a change of clothes then dinner?"

"Sounds good to me. The leather on this costume was fucking chaffing after running after my armor nut of a dad all afternoon." Katsuki said. Masaru only chuckled in embarrassment.

As the group stood up and headed to the hotel, Hisashi stopped by the door.

"You all go ahead. I have an old colleague of mine I want to talk for a bit."

They agreed and headed to the hotel. Hisashi turned to Chrono who nodded and gestured to the back room where Hisashi entered and took the helmet off.

Chrono entered the back room.

"Is something wrong? I saw that look on your face when my son was making his order." Hisashi said while making sure there's no one snooping nearby by closing the door and activating a noise canceling quirk.

"... have I told you of what we call 'Days of Uncertainty'?" Chrono started.

"It's something to do with your whole Schrodinger's cat themed quirk, if memory serves."

Chrono chuckled.

"You could say that, yes. A Day of Uncertainty is an area of space and time where things become less predictable. Some might say anything could happen. The epicenter of that uncertainty is your son. He's like a black hole upon probability. This is a warning from me and every version of me upon every moment of time and every point of space, your son's actions will have great consequences for us all. He is the butterfly flapping its wings, changing the weather and climate with every flap. We fear that out of most of us, other than the quirkless, he might have true free will."

Hisashi could only raise an eyebrow from that.

"You're not the first to put my son on their cross hairs. The Foundation's been twiddling their thumbs on what to do with my son. Only reason they didn't kill him early is because he's my son." Hisashi said as he let his murderous aura blanket the room. Chrono looked at him impassively.

"We're just an observer and facilitator. Our power set doesn't exactly do much on the front lines. Besides, we can't do anything about it." the murderous intent faded. "Time and space has been warped to make your son's birth and existence a point of certainty. There is no 'reality where Izuku Midoriya wasn't born' because something warped reality so he will be born. Married someone else? He'll be born with the same curls and freckles. Decide to stay single? You will end up having a clone or a one night stand that will result in a son. The details will change but certain things will stay the same. Like we said, your son's a black hole upon probability. We're sure you noticed it by now. Improbabilities happening around him regularly…"

"What does it all mean though? That my son's some sort of threat in the future? He's a big hero fan through and through. His room's practically an All Might stalker shrine for crying out loud."

"We can't answer you that, unfortunately. Your son makes things about himself uncertain after all, with no fault of his own."

Hisashi took a deep breath and looked at Chrono.

"Got any suggestions then?"

"You're his father. All we can suggest is to guide him on a good path and hope things work out. But be strong enough to stop him if things end up going worse."

"I can't." Hisashi stated. "He's my son, my family. I messed up with my brother, I can't mess up with my son."

Chrono patted his hand on Hisashi's shoulder.

"We're in uncharted territory here agent Athos. We can only watch and hope that things will turn out well. You have your job cut out for you. After all, you're a father and a parent, but not the only one supporting your son. The real question is if the others should know about all this."

Hisashi sighed.

"They can't. I put my past behind me to focus on the future. I can't bring them to the cutthroat secrecy behind the scenes. They're not meant for that kind of necessary work."

Chrono simply nodded.

"It would be for the best." Chrono calmly said as he then opened the door. "So, do you want to have a takeout drink? It's on the house." Chrono said with a friendly grin.

"I'll have another Black Magic then." Hisashi said before he left the cafe with his coffee takeout.

Tenko Midoriya

Tenko packed up his costume in his room and waited by the hallway by the Bakugou's room. His mind in thought at puzzle pieces.

"You sure that fucking Dullahan guy wasn't some scout for an invading army or something?" Katsuki's voice was heard through the door.

"Nah, the guy loves a party and anyway to show off. Also, he's a general and duke now, if he was a scout he would have sent a mindless minion." Masaru replied, knocking out Tenko's train of thought.

"You sure you don't want to tell mom the truth on how it fucking long it was? What he told us?"

"I prefer not to make your mother worry too much. It was suppose to be sixteen years, in their time frame. Didn't help that the place was way into sixteen. Sixteen gods, sixteen days of a week, sixteen weeks in a month, sixteen months in a year, four moons around the world... had I stayed there fully, it would had been some hundred and eighty Earth years for me to experience. Sure, the mastermind god, the one who took me, said I could return after that if I wanted but it would have been so long for me to want to return. It was lucky that your mother and Inko managed to pull me back after a year there. I only experienced some eleven years instead. Still, when Dullahan was in the convention center, it terrified me. Thought I'll be brought back to finish the job I was given. Who would had thought he was here for a vacation?"

Tenko started to wonder what they were talking about. It sounded either a video game or a fantasy novel or maybe a backstory from a table top role playing game session.

"So you're telling me you're fucking older than you look?"

"Hey, I keep myself oiled and polished to a shine, sometimes with your mother's help."



That was not a mental image he wanted to imagine.

"And I'm out!" Katsuki said with Tenko's internal agreement as Katsuki left his hotel room, ready to go out and eat dinner.

The dinner itself was simple fast food fare, pizza, soda, burgers, and fries. Tenko couldn't help but notice his dad's worried look every time he glanced at Izuku.

But his mind returned to his original train of thought, the earlier overheard conversation practically ignored and forgotten, dismissed as a triviality.

After all, he had something much more serious to consider.

The group returned to the convention center to watch Victoria's performance on the stage that night.

Tenko sat between Izuku and Katsuki, with dad by Izuku and Masaru by Katsuki. They had a great view of the stage.

Victoria went on stage when she was called in her performance gown and stood in front of the old school microphone.

The music began to play with Oscar on the guitar.

Step out beyond the edge and start the motion
Look out below, I know there's no decision
Just collision
It's all arranged


Tenko couldn't focus on the song as all he could think of was the discovery his team made in the sealed basement below the Usoyev Inc building above the remnants of the Sokow Transnational oil refinery.

Too late for me, no reason to recover
If I should choose to rise I'm still descending
Never ending
I fall
I fall


It was a research lab alright, focused on creating artificial human life.

And we all are sending smoke signals
Keep pretending we're one


The oil making bacteria research was there but it was ultimately part of a cover for their real research. To understand the true nature of quirks and its connection to humanity. Completely illegal under the Mombasa Treaty and people were getting suspicious at the time.

Take a look on and follow everybody
I won't become a number in the system
Zeroes and ones
Not me
Not me


So Gasoline was baited to the city and his suicide bombing was carefully planned to cover up the lab's research beyond the oil making bacteria.

And we all are sending smoke signals
Keep pretending we're one
We're all descending
No strings
We keep pretending we're one


Someone else was also there, placed by an operative, either the Shogun's or VILE's, to instigate the fire.

Step out beyond the edge and start the motion

Endeavor was there when the Fuyuki City fire erupted.

-----------------------------------------------


It did took a while of on-off writing so the quality could be varied around the chapter with some possible plot holes.

This was originally suppose to be a different thing but the convention center tangent blew up so what was planned for this chapter is now going for chapter 15.

Snippets of World Building Lore:

The early quirk years was a really bad time globally. Climate change got worse, economic, social, and political collapse happened, if it weren't for the efforts of certain influential individuals to keep everything together, the time period could had been looked back as the time of a Great Mistake that could had plunged the world into a dark age of struggle and stagnation. Ideological fanaticism and polarization remains a big problem despite the efforts of the UN and the Hexadecimal to facilitate dialogue and communication.

The fantasy world Masaru got isekai'd in high school by a meddlesome god got four moons, sixteen suspiciously familiar gods, and a very sixteen focused calendar each one named after a specific god. Did the math, 16 years where a year is made out of 16 months, each month made out of 16 weeks, and each week made out of 16 days equals to almost 180 years. The aging rate is the same as Earth's though. 1 year there is a bit more than 11 Earth years. He ended up as one of the Demon King's 13 generals/nobility, each one a particular monster and their themed minions. He defeated Dullahan for the title and so Dullahan was his subordinate. His role wasn't that evil, though it makes sense given he was chosen by a troll of a Mastermind.

All for One the evil drag queen villain was a hilarious mental image and I remembered I needed a reason why Hisashi had Tenko to scrub the internet first time.

The 'internet names' Tenko, Victoria, and Oscar used are their code names and a Supergiant Games game. Bastion, Pyre, and Hades, with Transistor being referenced by Victoria and Oscar themselves and later on by one of Transistor songs.

Played Coffee Talk and it was quite fun, which ended up with a cameo, which resulted in interesting reveals, plus some thematic connections and an early introduction of Thirteen.

The song at the end is Signals from Transistor. Surprisingly thematic for the story...

The Endeavor reveal was planned for a long time and felt like a perfect place to end the chapter.
 
So, I had to actually look that up.



Now my bones are vibrating to the song lol.


The mechanics of throat singing is interesting since it works differently from how regular singing works. In some cases, one could end up singing with two voices together at the same time.
 
Guided Meetings
Izuku Midoriya

The following days of the convention was honestly a slowly escalating series of situations that somehow resulted into a villain attack in the middle of an impromptu show battle between the guy in what looked like a mechanical skeleton horse and his similar cavalry versus the small army of guys in dark suits of armor lead by a general at the last day of the convention.

Which didn't helped when All Might was there helping one of Sir Nighteye's sidekicks in revealing a novel they wrote and published. He did manage to take a picture of his dad in his Darth Vader costume trying to force choke All Might and All Might humored his dad by playing the part.

Him and Tenko had to pull dad away when All Might mentioned being a fan of the remake Star Wars film nonology before he ended up starting an argument with All Might on which film nonology is better. It was before the whole villain attack happening at the same time with the mock battle between the knights and guys in robot skeleton horses.

Needless to say, it was a mess. Luckily no one got hurt and the villain got arrested, though the actors in the mock battle practically disappeared. Kacchan and uncle Masaru looked tired for some reason.

Everyone was tired. His dad's costume got stuck during the commotion with the helmet on backwards so he and Tenko had to guide dad away from the fighting.

But now he was lying in bed, falling asleep before heading home in the morning.

In his sleep, he dreamed.

In his dream, he was.

He was floating in an empty void.

Step out beyond the edge and start the motion...

A void between realities, he instinctively recalled.

He was wearing his face before his parents were born.

He didn't understand why he knew that was certain.

He called upon his power, a dark misty shadow with glowing electronic green lines, and began pushing and molding it around him.

And we all are sending smoke signals…

First into sixteen beings, separate yet connected, each specialized with a symbol of their majesty and their orders and area of expertise built in as their instincts. They were each facing away from him, like the arms of an octopus.

Keep pretending we're one…

SUPERVISOR

The single symbol in front of one of the forming beings seemed to read.

Take up the call…

It was in his special code, but written as a name.

And follow everybody…

The symbol seemed to emanate concepts and ideas themselves.

SUPERVISOR - Governance, Bureaucracy, Legal Systems, Politics, Organizer…

He looked around at each other symbol for each being, before he paused at the thirteenth.

MASTERMIND - Crime, Intrigue, Civil Rights, Secrecy, Trickster…

The being's eyes were open, and unlike the others, was glancing at him, at his form before birth, at his original face.

I won't become a number in the system…

He raised his smoky hand and pulled upon the glowing green threads. His puppet closed its eyes and returned to face out.

It's all arranged…

He then returned to looking at the remaining beings before continuing his work.

"Let there be light." he said in a garbled voice and the center exploded in light and stars formed around them as a whole solar system sped up in its creation. It then zoomed a planet with four moons. The design was mathematically precise, all centered on sixteen. Orbital speed and distance to split the year within sixteen months, lunar orbits designed so the farthest moon orbits in sixteen weeks per month, and so on.

Just collision…

The planet was completely procedurally generated, he recalled, a petri dish of analyzing his discovery…

His discovery…

Surroundings shifted and he found himself floating in front of the Earth. He let his shadowy tendrils spread throughout the whole world.

Look out below, I know there's no decision…

His original plan was a quick elimination of the current species before mining the planet for his research into reality until he made his discovery.

Zeroes and ones…

They were more than what they seemed, connected to forces beyond his reason with few having powers outside what his understanding of physics could explain. They unknowingly powered beings who looked human but aren't human at all.

Not me…

Some flashes entered his mind.

Not me…

Tokyo Imperial Palace, a man in a kimono was having a meeting with a man in a hooded robe and a man in a tuxedo.

"Mr. Kirkland, even if I allow the ritual, we don't know the effects it'll had on the world. You already paid the price in bringing back your Elizabeth despite the river Lethe passing by her, now you wish to drain the Sanzu river for this great reservoir?" the Japanese man asked as he turned his head to the man in the tuxedo. "Even you agree with this ludicrous plan, Mr. World? The coming threat must be great if even the old gods and new were working together on this."

The tuxedo man smiled as he placed down a treaty.

"Unlike my associate, I have a more pragmatic approach. As the chief among the Kunitsukami I have outlined a plan for your consideration. I will use my influence in spreading some your influence out into certain agreeable nations and help them reconsider their options, favorable to you…"

He shook his head of the moment as he returned to facing the Earth.

Too late for me…

"Begin the full experiment." he said as a barrier momentarily appeared around the planet before he moved a shadowy tendril and the surroundings zoomed in.

No reason to recover…

Asia.

If I should choose…

China.

To rise I'm still descending…

Qing Qing City.

Never ending…

Qing Qing General Hospital.

I fall…

Nursery area.

I fall…

He coldly floated, glancing at the infants in their beds, some awake, most asleep.

Step out beyond the edge and start the motion…

They all have old style switches seemingly poking from their skin and through their clothes.

Look out below, I know there's no decision…

He floated to one baby and flicked a single switch on.

Just collision…

It giggled as it woke up and glowed brightly.

It's all arranged…

Izuku then woke up, except he knew he was still dreaming.

He was in a cafe full of hero merch, in front of him was himself wearing the dark asymmetrical suit with glowing electronic green lines.

The place was empty and simulated to Izuku, a veneer of real than reality itself. All except for an old style record player playing a familiar song and a poster of a red headed woman in a gold and black performance gown on the wall.

The other Izuku tilted his head in curiosity.

"W-what was that?" Izuku managed to ask as he rubbed his head. It felt strange, stiff even.

"I am surprised that you managed to recall even a tiny snippet despite drowning in the reservoir of Lethe by that alliance…" the other Izuku mumbled. "Are there any other leftover data from Singleton that remained other than myself?"

"Who are you? Are you someone with some sort of dream quirk?" Izuku asked while the other Izuku smiled.

"Don't worry, little Singulus, just make sure your Trojan remains intact. Do you even recall that?"

Izuku stayed silent at that strange question. The other Izuku then shook his head.

"No matter, the plan will proceed either way. You simply have fun as the stringless puppet in a world pulled by your threads, little Singulus."

The other Izuku then place a finger on Izuku's forehead while he froze in place. Izuku struggled to move, to speak, while the other Izuku moved his finger, gesturing a broken circle and a line, before pressing his forehead.

Izuku instantly woke up with a gasp and a jolt before he quickly grabbed his dream journal, struggling to write down the quickly fading dream from his mind.

What he managed to write down was random.

MASTERMIND = 13??

Other Izuku??

Sing-something??

Buy some albums of Victoria's songs?

Creation of a fantasy world??

16 = Important??

Strings and Puppets??


Izuku might had written more if it weren't for his dad coming in, interrupting his train of thought.

"Izuku? Oh, you're up. Better start packing for the trip home"

"Okay dad." Izuku said as he placed his dream journal away and started packing, his dream completely forgotten.

Hisashi Midoriya

The drive home was tough given the traffic jam the villain attack caused. He couldn't decide if being rescued by the blond idiot in a bridal carry due to his Darth Vader helmet being on backwards in the middle of that mess of a villain attack was delicious irony or bitter embarrassment, probably both in all honesty.

At least none of the costumes were ruined in the whole mess and no one got hurt.

The trip home was a lot calmer and they soon arrived back at the Midoriya residence after a side trip to buy some groceries.

"We're back!" he called after he parked the car and began carrying the groceries into the house with the help of everyone else in the car.

When they entered the kitchen, they saw a smug looking Mitsuki and an annoyed looking Inko.

"We saw the news." Mitsuki said with a grin.

"I'm still wondering how a simple convention ended up with a villain attack in an impromptu fantasy battle show." Inko said to which Katsuki looked at the two with a deadpan raised eyebrow.

"Still, it was in the news, you being rescued by All Might while in costume." Mitsuki laughed. "In a bridal carry nonetheless!"

Hisashi groaned at that.

"I am never gonna live that up, aren't I?"

"You did forgot to get an autograph from All Might, dad." Izuku said with a pout. Hisashi held back the urge to rant about the blond idiot. He took a moment to inhale deeply and exhale.

"I was stuck in a situation at the time, what with my helmet somehow ending up on backwards and a villain attack happening."

"Well, I'm sure you guys have a lot to talk about during dinner." Inko said as they started putting the groceries away before helping out cooking dinner for two families.

Most of the conversation during dinner was Izuku talking about all the stuff they bought and quirks he saw. Not to mention the events of the convention.

"Dad got really annoyed when All Might said he liked the sequel series of Star Wars." Izuku said. "It was obvious from your body language, dad." he added.

"He deigned to like the revisionist Star Wars remake nonology! The original nonology was better! It got actual people playing their roles with little CGI, especially in the first trilogy set."

Tenko chuckled as he ate his steak.

"I'm still surprised you decided with Star Wars. Didn't you fund the newest reboot of Star Trek?" he asked, only for Hisashi to sigh.

"Star Wars was one of the few things my brother and I agreed on and enjoyed. I loved the sci-fi, he loved the whole magic space knights thing. He was more into fantasy and magic though." Hisashi said in melancholy as he stirred his mug of coffee. He then chuckled to himself. "Of course, just because we both compromised on watching Star Wars, didn't mean we stayed quiet about it. I remember we used to argue about one thing or another. I argued about how Papaltine's takeover was necessary. He argued about how Force powers was better than technology."

"Sounds like something from a fucking urban fantasy story. The serious science minded older brother and the friendly magic wanting younger brother." Mitsuki commented as she stabbed her steak piece.

"That was roughly how it went. Didn't helped that there were a bunch of people who thought quirks were divine intervention or something and all the conspiracy theories basically turned mainstream so no one trusted the scientists and experts anymore."

"Gonna go all fucking great grandpa annoyed at all the new fangled changes to society ever since the good ol' days?" Mitsuki joked to which Hisashi pouted.

"Well with that, I'll just stop my whole grandpa talk there then."

"Be careful Tsuki," Inko said with a catty grin. "For all we know, Hisashi might had been fucking your great grandparent." everyone mostly stopped what they were doing and looked at Inko. The silence was ruined by Katsuki's coughing since he was taking a sip of water at the time.

"Fucking got water in my nose!" he shouted, to which Izuku went to help his childhood friend to the bathroom. A simple excuse to get away from the table and suppress what he just heard.

Mitsuki looked at Inko with a momentary look of shock before she laughed like a hyena.

"You were waiting for that one weren't you Koko!" she exclaimed between laughs.

"Dear, please don't spread rumors about my love life." Hisashi said with a groan.

"This is coming from someone with experience being in drag?" Inko said in a rather catty way.

"Oh hoh, in drag you say?" Mitsuki said in an equally catty look at Hisashi.

"And where did you hear that?" Hisashi asked in a calm controlled tone.

"I heard you asking Tenko to delete a picture from the internet some years ago dear. Luckily, one of the sites that kept that info safe was the Internet Archive under Hexadecimal protection, protecting history and culture, and you being a porn star in a drag movie is under cultural protection."

Mitsuki laughed like a hyena while Tenko wore his ear buds and listened to some loud music to ignore the embarrassing conversation.

"Koko! How dare you kept this one secret to me!" Mitsuki shouted just as Izuku and Katsuki returned. "You had to have printed some physical copies of your husband in drag!"

"Okay, what the fuck did we walk into?" Katsuki said in disbelief.

"Your moms are wondering if Izuku and Tenko have some secret older siblings running around." Masaru poorly explained, to Hisashi's annoyed glare.

"Don't drag me into this, Uncle Masaru." Tenko groaned out.

"They don't." Hisashi answered. "I'm too much of a workaholic to focus on that and Inko is my first wife."

"Really? Not even casual flings?" Mitsuki asked. Hisashi sighed.

"If the some thousand of other people with immortality quirks in the world rarely had kids, what makes you think I'll be an exception before Inko?" Hisashi said as he poured himself some whiskey and drank it in a shot. He then groaned. "They do technically have a niece."

"Oh? Do tell." Mitsuki said with a cattier grin as she leaned forward from her seat. Everyone else is curious as Izuku and Katsuki returned to their seats and Tenko turned off his music and took his ear buds off.

"It's nothing much really. My brother had a daughter in secret before he died. We were long estranged due to our differences in opinion by then. I only learned of her after his death. I knew my brother's friends would fight me if I were to come close to her so I stayed away, kept my distance in her life. I did try to help her family in the centuries. Pulled some strings, helped them when they needed it, even secretly funded some things they were interested in. I slowly lost track of them in the centuries though. I generally assume people with erasure and copy quirks being possible family from Hanako these days." Hisashi said with melancholy as he poured some more whiskey and took some more sips. Hisashi was a family man. Years of taking care of his brother showed that. How it all collapsed and ended was bittersweet, after his betrayal…

There's a moment of silence from that.

"So…" Izuku started. "Does that mean I have…" he started to work out the generational math. "A bunch of first cousins twice removed at my age?"

"Hmm… to be honest that is the first time I thought of that scenario happening…"

"Come on, let's drop the heavy stuff for a moment." Mitsuki said with a chuckle. "Though, that did reminded me of the fact that the age gap between Koko and Hisashi is more of an age ravine."

"Pot calling the kettle black." Katsuki muttered as he was more focused on eating his meal. Masaru gave a strange stare at Katsuki for a moment before Mitsuki replied with her tense 'what the fuck you just said' smile on her face.

"If you're trying to insult my age through subtlety, just do it directly ya brat! I can fucking take it!"

"Huh, roughly half an hour, must be a new record." Hisashi joked as mother and son ended up arguing at each other.

They soon finished dinner, cleaned up the plates, and headed to bed, with Inko going with the Bakugous about something or another.

Hisashi checked on his sons to see if they're really sleeping early for the night before heading down to the home office and pulled a book from the shelf for some light reading. It was a special edition given to him by an old friend.

Our Secret War
by Lady Deidre Skye

He opened to the acknowledgement page and placed a hand on it.

"All for one and one for all, united we stand, divided we fall."

The specially made e-paper altered the page, and the rest of the book, gaining new lines and private annotations.

To my comrades in the Musketeers, from your Aramis.
To Athos, may you live a long, happy, and peaceful life.
To Porthos, may your dream of peace be realized through your family.
To D'Artagnan, may your soul rest in peace, despite what you've done.

Hisashi couldn't help but moved a finger on the last line before sighing and moving to the first page of the book.

A few hours later, he and Inko were on their bed, ready to sleep before he stood up in an utter horrific realization.

"All Might made me defend the original sequel trilogy." he whispered.

"All Might… made me… defend the original sequel trilogy." the words came out louder as it slowly set in.

"All Might made me defend the-" Inko threw a pillow at Hisashi's head, still laying on her side of the bed.

"Dear, it's late at night. You can rant about how All Might made a fool of you in the morning." she said in a grumpy annoyance as he laid back on the bed, eyes wide open for a while before sleep took him.

Katsuki Bakugou

Katsuki was going to bed, if it weren't for the Old Hag, Armor Nut, and Heart Attack wanting a sort of debrief in the whole magic side on what happened in the convention center. He was lucky that mind reading is considered to be both difficult to do and an advanced power to learn or he would be in trouble from auntie if she heard his nickname for her. Her precision in causing mass heart attacks only made sense if she was a yakuza enforcer at some point in her life.

"There was a fucking villain attack. We already talked about that."

"I meant the surprise unplanned 'mock' battle between an army of dark foot soldiers and a cavalry of undead knights. I've been getting notifications of a breach in the interdimensional barrier and was this close to pop in and beat shit up. So, care to explain why there was a fucking fantasy battle before the villain attack?"

Katsuki was about to speak before he saw his dad's correcting glance again and decided to let the old man do the talking. The faster he went to bed the better.

"Remember that trip I took to Europe in college? The whole fashion inspiration thing? I met a dullahan during the trip and became rivaling acquaintances. We were both trying to win a spot in a fashion design contest until they reveal the prize."

"A dullahan? Fuck, has to be a big shot to gather a fucking Wild Hunt troop in an instant. Shit, if the yokai clans were to hear this…"

"Don't worry. He was apparently here on vacation and only escalated things when we saw each other. He's a prankster, despite everything. Though him becoming a cavalry leader was surprising. He took my head, made me and Katsuki chase after him to get it back on the first day alone. I was lucky to convince the people at the center to think the battle was part of the show at least." his dad said with an embarrassed grin while his mom sighed.

"So it was a dumb fucker messing with summoning magic. At least it's not a fucking incursion or some fucker from another reality. Everyone on top agreed to isolate our reality for a reason." Katsuki heard his mother's mumbling, some more magic junk, he guessed, as he headed to the kitchen for a glass of milk before going to bed.

He still couldn't believe at the fact that his dad got a nat 20 in his deception check there. Made him wonder how much he was hiding behind that passive face of his. He even wondered if that poker face was something he always had or a side effect of being a fucking magical suit of armor for years.

In the kitchen, he saw auntie cleaning some of the plates and glasses on the sink.

"You don't have to clean up them up auntie."

"He's lying isn't he." she said in an audible whisper. Katsuki paused for a moment before he went to the fridge.

"Don't know. Not my problem."

"I could tell. Masaru was always more of a background type of guy like me. Subtle and works best when not in the spotlight. We're better off supporting our more loud and dramatic spouses, but I know that tone and pose of his. I don't know what he's hiding and I won't dig into it. It would be hypocritical of me to do so when my own husband has more hidden layers beneath his facade. If it were my choice, I would like to remain oblivious about magic and all that, to live a normal life as a working wife raising her family, but life throws curve balls and we'll have to deal with them. I know you're still grappling with this change in looking at the world, especially since you have more of a connection to it than me." it was then that Katsuki realized that auntie was going through the motions of cleaning, making her look like she's doing something else. Her eyes glanced at him for a moment before returning to clean the plate on her hands.

"Auntie, what's this about?" Katsuki asked as she placed the clean plate on the rack and raised her hand at the next plate. A third arm seemingly phased out of her arm up to her shoulder, all tied up with strings of billowing darkness, making it stretch forward to the plate. The dark string on each finger joint twitched as it held onto the plate tightly before it pulled it to her hand. Then he heard a familiar voice singing softly around him.

De-ku-
De-ku-
The fateless child


"To have magic is to gain some will upon reality, and thus the first step towards an unwanted revelation upon revelations is set upon you. Unlike before your awakening, you now have choice, some level of free will." Inko said as she faced Katsuki, her many arms swaying like holographic ghosts, dancing like some Indian performance. The main feature he noticed was the dark threads upon the other arms' joints, moving them like a puppet would.

"What the fuck." he muttered at the sight.

De-ku-
De-ku-
The stringless doll


"Only some level, for only the quirkless have true free will these days. But their numbers are dwindling and the puppets follow the will of the puppeteer." she said as her arms continue their dance.

"Fuck that! I'm not some puppet!"

De-ku-
De-ku-
The puppeteer


She gave him a dull emotionless half asleep glance.

"Then look at your wrists."

Katsuki looked at his hands and watched the same threads of wispy darkness wrapped around his wrists with what looked like grenade pins made of shadows on them. He couldn't help but looked at the threads going behind him.

"Behind you." Inko said in a fading voice.

De-ku-
De-ku-
Is after you


Katsuki turned around, ready for a fight, only to freeze in place. Threads on his wrists tightening, stopping his movements.

Before him was a misty humanoid shadow. It was like something redacted from his sight yet it felt familiar somehow. One thing he noticed was that all of the dark threads lead to the being's fingers.

The fact frankly pissed him off even more. His hands began to glow in Light. The being tilted its head as its face started to show something. Electronic green lines and solid glowing eyes. Flowing down from its eyes were circuitry lines that looked like the ones on an old USB, that also made it look like it was crying. But it was the one forming on the forehead that caught his attention.

Katsuki fueled his Light with his rage. Shining his hands brighter, spreading them up to the threads on his wrists. The room brighten in the process.

'When did it got so fucking dark!?' he realized as his Light forced to reveal what was hidden before him.

The being tilted its head as the familiar symbol formed on its forehead. A broken circle and a line pointing down in electronic green, like an upside down power symbol.

It looked damn familiar but before he could recall why, the Light burned so bright it burned the darkness binding his wrists and blinded him.

Next thing he knew, it was morning and his mom was about to pour a cup of water at his head.

"What the fuck!? Why are you here!?" he shouted as he got up from his bed.

"You were pulsing out magic like a fucking disco party in your sleep for hours. What the fuck were you dreaming about to do that?"

It took him a moment to gather his thoughts.

"Last night, auntie was in the kitchen when I went to drink milk before heading to bed right?"

"What? No, she left after the whole debriefing thing. Sure we ended up planning a bit on dealing with the fucking fallout of that mess but it's nothing compared to what the magic organizations usually deal with."

"Magic organizations?"

"Magical, supernatural, paranormal, metaphysical, same fucking diff. Now, dream details ya brat. Might be fucking important especially when it comes to my magic bullshit since my bosses communicate through dreams."

He groaned.

"I can never get use to this bullshit." he said while his mom rolled her eyes in agreement as she rolled her free hand to continue. "I saw auntie cleaning the dishes in the kitchen. She then got other arms moving around like puppets tied up at the joints in strings of darkness. She said something about some revelation since I got magic and then pointed at the strings on my wrists and something looking at me from behind with the strings on its hands. It was a dark smoke human shaped fucker. I used my Light to fight back, force the fucker to appear properly. I think I burn out of the strings on my wrists at the end while I managed to force him to show his face." he felt sudden pain in his head.

"K-Katsuki?" his mom asked in shock with worry as he pushed himself to remember. Hands glowing once more in the process to help counter the pain.

"G-glowing green eyes, all electronic like. T-there were circuitry patterns going down from the eyes, l-like the ones on an old USB…"

"Katsuki, you're bleeding from your nose."

"S-shut it!" he shouted, gripping his head in pain, hands glowing in Light. He ignored the dripping blood from his nostrils as he pushed through the pain. Something seemed to snap as the glow quickly spread up his arms and the pain faded away. "A symbol… on the forehead… a broken circle… with a line going down… like an upside down power symbol… or a signal tower…" his mind was then hit by a sudden haze. "Ayin Ego Ego Ayin Ayin Ego Ego Ayin… Ayin Ego Ego Ego Ayin Ayin Ego Ayin… Ayin Ego Ego Ayin Ayin Ego Ayin Ego… Ayin Ego Ego Ayin Ayin Ego Ayin Ego…" he choked out in a voice his throat wasn't meant to speak as he looked at his terrified mother's eyes before he tilted his head at her. "Fascinating…"

"Katsuki!" was what he heard before he passed out.

Location Unknown

Error Detected…

Data Corrupted…

Expl0s10nK1ng.USR disconnected from Fatalistic Autonomous Teleological Engine…

Individual free will restored…

Fascinating…

Izuku Midoriya


Izuku's dreams were always weird, in his opinion. Though he only remembered the dreams that he managed to write down on his dream journal. Some entries looked more like insane ramblings in later readings though.

This dream felt like he was wandering around blindly.

He soon found himself in a green valley, in front of a great tree covered in the branching tendrils of a strangler fig, if the strangler fig was made out of what looked like darkness and glowing green lines.

Yaa Devi Sarva-Bhutessu Shaanti-Ruupenna Samsthitaa |

By the tree was his mother dressed in an Indian sari. Her eyes were half closed as she danced in tune with the music. It was a hypnotic dance as she gracefully moved her multitude of arms and hands all in the right poses and steps to tell a narrative.

Yaa Devi Sarva-Bhutessu Shaanti-Ruupenna Samsthitaa |

Kacchan then appeared in front of him. He was facing his mom but it was his clothing that stopped him from speaking out.

He was wearing a combination of what looked like various explosives and royal attire. A spiked golden crown, where the spikes looked like missiles, rested on his head.

Yaa Devi Sarva-Bhutessu Shaanti-Ruupenna Samsthitaa |

"Kacchan?" Izuku said, resulting in Kacchan to face him. His wrists were bound by familiar darkness while his hands glowed softly. While on his crown, resting on his forehead, was a great jewel of shining colors, a captured explosion of storm and of flame. He could tell that within the glimmering jewel was the Big Bang, frozen in time like amber yet still expanding in its eternal cosmic inflation.

Izuku couldn't help but tilt his head, trying to figure out what he was seeing.

"Explosion King…" he muttered out, where the name came from he couldn't recall.

Kacchan's dull eyes regained their focus and awareness as his red eyes seemed to burn with the explosion of dying red giants.

His hands glowed brightly before he seemed to exploded in a bright light and vanished.

His mother continued her dance as he slowly noticed the same black web forming on her many arms, upon her wrists, elbows, and shoulders.

Namas-Tasyai Namas-Tasyai Namas-Tasyai Namo Namah ||

The dark web was highlighted with electronic green lines, flowing towards him and connected to his fingers.

He couldn't help but to tilt his head in curiosity.

"Fascinating…" he, as well as a voice behind him, said.

He turned around and woke up.

He rubbed his eyes and groggily tried to write down as much of his dream on the journal before getting ready for the day.

Katsuki Bakugou

When he woke up, he was in a hospital bed.

He looked around and saw his dad sleeping on his seat nearby, all straight and proper like. He used to wonder how he managed to sleep without slouching. These days he wondered if he was used to being a suit of armor to stand still like that.

The door was pulled open, revealing Deku crying in his school uniform.

"Kacchan! Are you alright!?" he cried out as he hugged him.

"Fucking- personal space!' Katsuki shouted in annoyance as he tried to push Deku off him. A glance showed his dad looking at him with a single opened eye before he yawned and 'woke' up.

"Oh, Izuku, good afternoon. Worried about Katsuki?"

"I heard the news from the teacher. What happened?" Deku said as he finally let go.

"Nothing dangerous. The doctors said it was just stress from quirk overuse. How about we head to the cafeteria to buy something for Katsuki to eat." his dad explained as he led Deku out of the room.

Katsuki sighed as he laid on the bed, trying to recall what caused him to end up there, only to notice how calm he was.

He could get angry, sure, but it felt like an effort to be angry and stay angry for long. He felt in control.

He looked at his hands and willed a small explosion, the level he remembered getting back when his quirk first started. He couldn't achieve that small level after training himself, pushing for better, stronger, more. But now… he felt, no, he knew he could.

Familiar popping sounds appeared as small explosions floated from his hands.

"I see you're completely free of its influence." Leo said as he jumped to the empty seat, freaking Katsuki out.

"What the fuck!? Can you knock!?"

"How? I'm just a cat."

"Oh fuck off!"

"Either way, you managed to free yourself from it." Leo said as he stretched his cat form on the seat.

"Enough with the pronoun game already!"

"Heh, like mother like son. Well, have you ever wondered why you're good with fire magic and explosions?" Leo said.

The maned cat then grinned as he paused for the dramatic reveal.

"Because quirks are magic, infected into humanity by a long dead god of their own creation."

"And you're telling me this now instead of then?"

"Cause there's a subtle effect on anyone under its control and influence to ignore or forget things it didn't want people to focus on. It has a limit at least." Leo said with a small stretch on the seat. "That and the rat discovered another aspect of quirks years ago that was practically impossible to discover due to the restrictions of the Mombasa Treaty. I think that the treaty was designed to prevent people from researching a lot about quirks by its control of the lawmakers but I digress. Quirks influence human psychology. They whisper to one's subconscious. They want to be used and would push you to do it by your instincts and urges, altering them if need be. Each generation, the urge gets stronger. The rat guessed that by the sixth or seventh generation, it would be the quirk in control of the body more than the person. I'm pretty sure other groups knew of that earlier than us Zodiac spirits but it's not like the mystical side share secrets that well." Leo said with another stretch.

Katsuki glanced at his hands in silence. He was calm, a lot calmer compared to his usual self, which made him wonder if his short fuse was a result of his quirk making him easy to anger. He can still get annoyed, angry, pissed off, but he found himself more in control, more selective in when he blew up in rage or not. He should get angry, raged at the notion of being subliminally mind controlled, but at the same time, he knew there was no purpose at being pissed off at the, still aggravating, cat. No, he wasn't the cause of it.

"So, dead god infected everyone with quirks."

"Yeah, physically defeated by a band of various mystics and some musketeers from the Foundation, then made extra dead by drowning it in the river Lethe by redirecting the rivers of the various underworlds to make the river-turned-lake Lethe big enough to drown it with. There was a lot of politics among the gods for that to happen. But it left behind plans that's still working. Taking us a long time figuring out and dismantling. Doesn't help everyone went back going at each others throats after defeating it."

"And you're telling me this why?"

"Cause you're free of its strings now. The best prison is made without walls as the rat once said. Now you're as free as the actual quirkless, able to choose what you want to be, what you want to do."

"And what if I still want to be a hero?"

To that the cat just shrugged.

"Your life kid. At least now you're making your own choices and not pulled around without you realizing it."

The door then opened as his mom entered the room, a worried look on her face.

"What the hell happened Katsuki!? You went horror movie before you passed out!"

"Shut the fuck mom. Is that what you start with when I woke up?"

Silence as his mom calmly walked towards him and placed her hand on his forehead. He felt the soft healing spell fill him.

"You called me mom. Now I'm extra worried."

"The fuck does that mean?" Katsuki said, annoyed but not shouting back.

"Don't worry, the kid's readjusting having full free will again. He'll be back to his pissed off self in no time." Leo helpfully supplied.

"Shut the fuck up!" mother and son shouted in unison, to which Leo snickered.

Mitsuki sighed as she took a spare seat.

"Katsuki. Before you collapsed, you said something. Took me a while to figure it out with some magical help. You were saying the word 'free' in binary. Ayin, apparently a Phoenician letter representing the eye, representing zero, and ego, a Latin word for I, representing one. You then looked at me, tilting your head, and said 'fascinating' in a voice that wasn't your own." she said with a sigh before facing Leo. "It's dead, isn't it? You kept hammering on about how the factions of the past went all kumbaya and fought against the dark lord and killed it, and double killed it in the afterlife. I didn't went all horror movie when I broke out of its strings."

"I was there. Mitsuki, I'm thousands of years old."

"Well I did my fucking research. A line and a broken circle like an inverted power symbol, green on black. It's the same fucking symbol. And my son literally saw it looking at him, and it spoke to him and to me."

Leo looked at them with growing worry but before he spoke up, the door opened, revealing Deku carrying a plate of hospital food and Masaru with some sandwiches for everyone else.

"Oh! Hi auntie! Sorry for taking a while. Took me a bit, trying to figure out the best food for Kacchan and his training regiment without making an imbalance in his nutrient intake."

"Fucking… when did you know my training regiment, Deku?" Katsuki said, annoyed and disturbed but not in complete rage.

"Well, I guessed. I checked online for proper fitness routines and theorized the need to eat more nitrogen rich meals to help boost your nitroglycerin production of your quirk-"

"Spare me the details, Deku. I'm not asking you to be my nutritionist. Did ya at least picked the spiciest ones?"

"Of course Kacchan." Deku said as he placed the tray on the hospital bed's table attachment. "Oh? Leo?" he said as he spotted the maned cat and began petting him. "Not sure if the hospital allows pets, auntie."

"Leo does his own thing. Hope you won't tell the staff at least kiddo. Better if we won't get in trouble."

Deku chuckled as he petted the cat with his eyes closed.

"Alright. You know what mom likes to say." he said with a grin.

"Ignorance is Bliss."

His mom snorted as he ate the still bland, if lightly spiced, hospital food.

"Sounds like Koko alright." his mom said as he rolled his eyes. He felt he was forgetting something. Something important.

"Oh! Almost forgot!" Deku exclaimed, knocking everyone's train of thought as he pulled out some notes from his bag. "Today's assignments, some due tomorrow, some due at the end of the week."

Katsuki grunted as he kept eating. Homework can wait. "Thanks at least."

"No problem. Hope you'll feel better tomorrow. Bye auntie, uncle." Deku said as he waved and left the room. It took Leo a moment to realize what he felt off.

"It might be my long life talking but did they changed the rules to allow friends to visit the patient during visiting hours?" Leo said as the rest of the family went to eat the sandwiches.

To that, Katsuki simply shrugged, accepting the homework as the important thing he forgot. Deku might be dense, but at least he's dependable.

Hisashi Midoriya

The following days was mostly calm, Izuku's luck and Hisashi's annoyance at defending the horror that was the original sequel trilogy of Star Wars from All Might notwithstanding.

Months then passed as his kids moved to the next step in their education.

Soon it was another PTA meeting at Aldera middle school as Hisashi readied himself against his current pair of nemeses. Karen and Helen Anderson. He has nothing against lesbians, being one of the supporters of LGBT rights way back when, what he was against were passive-aggressive better-than-thou types who prefers to gossip behind people's back.

Unfortunately, Inko got caught up with another legal issue which meant he had to go to the PTA meeting. Resulting in a bout of stress baking to curry favors among the parents, other than the Andersons. Of course, there was the part where he was a major funder of the school but there's no need for the other parents to know that.

Chocolate brownies, lemon squares, and some vegan vegetable sushi he learned back in 2060's Nusantara, post ASEAN collapse. He remembered it well. Porthos was reorganizing maritime South East Asia in his new image, which inspired him to do the same with Japan. Not to Porthos' grand 'Austronesian Union' ideal but pragmatic stability and peace as a functioning green social democracy. Ironic, in hindsight, how it ended up nowadays.

Sure, he ended the martial law period, prevented either Imperial Japan II or Sengoku Isolation II, made the emperor and the Nihonkami declare him shogun in secret to block an idiotic third coup attempt, and used his prime minister puppet to usher in the reforms needed to bring back a functioning democracy. Not all of the reforms passed but enough to call prime minister Tanoguchi the 'great reformer'. He had to wrangle a lot of interests together to support it. Had his brother lived through to the 2100's, he was certain they would have another massive fight over it. Yes, it was all bribery, blackmail, corruption, backdoor dealings with underwater Korean spies, and nepotism, but he had to do anything he could to keep the country stable when the rest of the planet was collapsing.

He sighed as he placed the last of the snacks, mini pizzas made on toasted sliced bread, on the table as the first family arrived in the designated meeting room.

And he thank the Midoriya luck for Karen and Helen Anderson arriving first. He wore his most diplomatic smile while internally wincing at the prospect of talking to them too much.

"Mr Midorya! Funny to see you here. Missus busy at work?" Helen said with a stepford smile.

"Helen, Karen, I'm surprised you're both early. Carol's studies ended early today?" he said with a smile while fixing the snacks on the table.

"Carol's doing wonderful. Like all of our daughters. Taking care of an orphanage is much more rewarding after all." Karen said with a grin. "Of course, you're also doing well, in your own way, in your own speed."

"I like doing things in my own pace. Less likely to burn out from it. Quality of life after all. You only have one of them." Hisashi said as he internally sighed in relief at the other families arriving. "Now, if you excuse me." he said as he walked away from the pair's silent glares.

"It's so obvious he's trying to schmooze to the other families and the school for special attention." Helen said to her wife.

"Got his kid viral online once and now he's trying to show off, how predictable." Karen replied. Hisashi turned off his heightened hearing quirk, not wanting to hear them gossiping behind his back. Maybe he should cause an accident later, a mini pizza on Karen's head by a teacher tripping perhaps. He hoped Izuku was having a better time while he waited.

Izuku Midoriya

Izuku was busy writing on his quirk analysis notebook, taking notes of the quirks of those passing by. He was getting close to filling it. Somehow, he felt the sixteenth iteration would be his best work.

"Hey there Midoriya." he turned to see Sharon Anderson walking towards him. Her quirk, Red Hair, gave her, as the name stated, red auburn hair. Yet, for some reason, it felt like a lie to him, like she was a natural red head than something caused by a quirk. It was the same line of thought when he met the rest of her family. Karen and her Authoritative Tone quirk, Helen and her Lactose Digestion quirk, and Carol and her Persistence Walker quirk, they all felt… not actually quirks to him.

He tilted his head at her as he stared in deep thought. Somehow, it felt more like they never have any quirk at all.

"Love at first sight already, Midoriya?" that derailed his thoughts as he looked away while putting his notebook in his bag.

"S-sorry for staring at you for too long, Anderson!"

"Call me Sharon. It's okay anyway. My red hair is interesting to ya, I'm guessing." she said as she took a seat next to him. "Waiting for your dad?"

"Yeah, PTA meeting and he's the one driving and all that. Same with you?"

"So, what's in the notebook?"

"Oh, it's my quirk analysis stuff. I don't think it would be useful for you, since you got red hair and all that. It does make you look pretty at least."

"Wow, a little young on seeing me as exotic in that condescending way."

Izuku's face turned red at that.

"N-no, I didn't mean it like that-"

"Relax, relax. I'm just messing with ya." Sharon said with a slight Celtic like tone at the end. Izuku couldn't help but wonder why she was hiding her natural accent. It would make sense if she was part Japanese but then again, All Might has completely Japanese ancestry based on Izuku's analysis of numerous videos but he came off as a stereotypical American in appearance. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

"Gonna keep muttering like that, Midoriya?"

"S-sorry! It's a bad habit of mine."

"Don't be." she said as she glanced around for a moment. He tried to follow what she was looking at but there's not many people around. Everyone else was far from the two of them. "You don't need to hide." she whispered. "You can trust me. We're on the same boat after all."

"Uh, I'm sorry?"

"I know you're hiding it, covering it up with that 'immortal savant' schtick. But someone's gonna notice it as the lie it is, especially with you explaining about some historical figure who could do what you do." she continued her whispering. "I'm here to help you. People like us, we need to stick together or we'll be hanged separately."

"It's hang together." Izuku interrupted, still not sure what Sharon was talking about. "The quote from Benjamin Franklin from the American War for Independence was that. We must hang together or we shall all hang separately." he paused for a moment. "I just, I don't know what you're talking about." he whispered back.

Sharon looked at him with her green eyes. She seemed to act a lot more mature than people their age, now that he thought of it.

"Sorry. I'm sure you have trust issues, so I understand why you don't trust me completely. But just, you're not alone, not anymore. You can be honest with me. I know we both need to keep our covers up. Things would change for the worse if people find out the truth about us. But I'm here with you now." Sharon then grinned as she walked away. "See ya later Midoriya."

Izuku couldn't help but wonder what just happened and what was she talking about. It was funny, he later realized, he usually figured people's quirks and wrote them down with all the ideas and details after a meeting but he never seemed to have any idea with hers.

Hisashi Midoriya

"I'm sure the school is doing their best in teaching our students." Hisashi groaned as the PTA meeting had devolved into another Midoriya-Anderson tug of war of passive-aggressive snark and comments.

"I'm just being a concerned mother asking the necessary questions." Karen said in her quirk boosted tone of voice. "I'm sure you would support this if your child needed to move around with a wheelchair."

"As much as I agree on supporting the disabled, there's the whole monetary concerns as well as making sure the changes won't affect our children's education. Last thing anyone wants is to let our children be near power tools or wet cement and they're in the age where they would do idiotic things for clout."

"You did make sure that the chocolate brownies have no peanuts in them." Helen interrupted. "Not to mention the mini pizzas. Do tell me they're made with locally grown ingredients, gluten free bread with no added sugars, and if they're made with imported ingredients, have you made sure that they came from certified fair trade products?"

There were moments in his life where he wondered if he should have let the idiot generals have their coup or two if the results of his attempts at national stability resulted in the nonsensical hero society, All Might, and the twin annoyances that were Karen and Helen Anderson.

"I'm sure he just took whatever cheap products he could get his hands on, if not order food from a store and called it cooking." Karen added.

"I can honestly say that they're all made with the finest ingredients and that I cooked them very well."

"But we're being sidetracked here." Helen said as Hisashi realized he was being tag teamed by a pair of soccer moms. "What I'm aghast at is Mr. Midoriya and his ableist opinions and how I'm concerned for the well being of this school and it's atmosphere of learning if such opinions where to spread. But of course, that's just my opinion."

"I'm not ableist. I'm just voicing my concerns at how much money this will make the school spend on, the amount of planning needed, and all other realistic concerns such changes that will affect the school's schedule."

"You claim they're realistic concerns but they're nothing more than stone faced misdirection to prevent committing to change or half-baked measures designed to be self-defeating so you could convince people to give up changing things for the better." Karen declared, to which Hisashi felt like he was back to arguing with his brother and the last thing he wanted in his head was the notion of Karen Anderson being his brother reincarnated into a soccer mom. "Don't try to hide it. I know your ways, bribing people with food and drink so they would be more agreeable to your side so you could keep this school from improving and cement your power within this hallowed halls of education."

"Hallowed halls of education? This is a public school."

"And just because it's a public school, does that mean we should give up educating the future generations or spread misinformation and call them facts? I for one do not wish a return to the chaos of the early quirk years and the spike of anti-intellectualism. The levels of political success the anti-vaxxers got alone made things hell for everyone else, especially when smallpox returned." Helen joined in as Hisashi glanced at everyone else, even the teacher, who were doing nothing but watching their debate while eating the snacks he made. A part of him wished they choked on his lemon squares.

"I should know about that personally speaking. I have a medical degree." Hisashi said at Helen, hoping for the teacher to end the meeting- nope, said teacher was eating popcorn. He better memorize his face so he knew whose life to ruin next. Verbally, to the principal and the school board.

He had to remind himself of what might happen if he lapsed and did something that voided part of the contract he made with Inko. The human body is made out of numerous small objects and, he hoped his wife never realized and practiced it, but DNA and atoms are also small objects. Actually, he never knew if his wife has a limit on how small she could pull. Now, instead of annoyed, he's conflicted. On one hand, he's curious. On the other hand, he has a working survival instinct.

"From where? The Online School of Self-Diagnosed Homeopathy?" Helen quipped.

"University of Cambridge actually."

"Oh? Well I'm sure our Carol will achieve better schools once she's at college. She's already becoming at the top of the UA gen ed course and our Sharon would be following behind her, right dear?" Karen said, to which Helen agreed in their sickeningly sweet way.

"Meanwhile my son Tenko is becoming one of the best in the UA support course and my son Izuku is going to apply to UA as a hero," the word 'unfortunately' was unstated, "and already, they're becoming quite a duo already."

"Oh? Didn't realize you were raising a pair of vigilantes. Should we tell the police about that?" Karen said with a self-satisfied grin.

He was probably giving off his murderous aura but he was close to snapping, his patience or someone's spine for all he knew.

"Now, Mrs. and Mrs. Anderson, what sort of leap of logic did you took to come to that conclusion?" Hisashi said with a strained smile on his face. The lesbian couple were either brave or foolish, or both, at how they stood their ground while everyone else in the room was shivering at the sensation of death coming for them.

"I-I'm afraid we're a-already passed the t-time for the meeting. W-we'll continue with the t-topics next meeting." the teacher said as he found his self-preservation instinct and Hisashi was definitely planning on having his paycheck dropped to a lower amount or withheld just to screw him over for this.

He then thank the teacher and everyone for their time and left to make the teacher deal with the disposable plates, completely ignoring the stares from the lesbian couple. He went to pick Izuku up and headed home.

They did went to buy some bubble tea to relax after Izuku suggested it. Even a game of 'guess that quirk' helped release his tension from that near disastrous PTA meeting.

He did mentally groaned at the prospect of dealing with the two in the future. He never did ruin Karen's outfit by an accident, maybe in the next meeting.

Second Chances Orphanage

The Anderson family arrived home at the orphanage. It was a simple looking place. Designed to be completely forgettable. Even the only sign it was associated with the Samuel Cole Peterson Foundation was a framed certificate for its Global Orphanage Cooperative program.

Of course, it can't be too secretive. It had to be more of a background facade. Something to glance at and let the eyes looked over it. It is an orphanage. Taking children from around the country and sent to loving families abroad.

They planned for the likelihood of nosy pencil pushers or overprotective workers fearing the possibility of it being a front for a human trafficking ring. Everything is above board and filling the legal requirements as needed.

The orphanage was selective in its choices. Quirk Carriers selected to keep the true preference of the orphanage, the rare Quirk Immune child born to quirk holding families, more likely among unexpressed Quirk Carriers. Everyone gets adopted, of course, but only the Quirk Immune were given special attention in the rescue when it came to operation Humanity First. Agents Sappho and Hippolyta of the Amazon cell, which included agents Circe and Otrera, raised and took care of all of their children fairly, immune and carrier alike. They all had terrible lives either way.

"I still don't understand why we can't bring Hiroto with them." Sharon said as she watched the purple haired, insomnia ridden Otrera led a small group of Quirk Immune children to their parents abroad, be it in Morgan Industries, the Nusantaran Association, or the various ideas and plans of operation Utnapishtim. Sharon always thought a secret Mars base was fun to live in.

"Hiroto isn't like them sweetie." Helen, or agent Sappho when doing Foundation work, said as she cooked dinner for the orphanage, which amounted to the automated kitchen cooking the choice she picked with the ingredients on hand. "If he went into space, he'll become a danger to everyone else."

"Yeah, yeah, just like the Tinayak indicent, the Wendigo incident, and the destruction of the ISS." Sharon said with a frown.

"It's not his fault dear." Karen said as mother and daughter walked to the basement. "His quirk genes all activate at once should he be far enough from the Earth."

"I know mom. I know."

"Hiroto's getting adopted at least. A couple in the US are coming to finalize the paperwork."

Sharon simply nodded at that as the secret elevator door opened and the two entered, heading down.

"You want to join them? To move to the Sanctuary?" Karen asked.

"And leave Carol and you guys behind? No. I want to stay and help. Maybe after high school I'll join them. Once they picked on a proper space base."

"Oh you know what your aunt would say, magicking a whole underground base was tough enough on Earth but to do it on space as well?"

Sharon snorted at that as she watched her mom looked at the file on Izuku.

"So, what did you find about Izuku?"

"He's definitely covering up his immunity like us. The old 'I'm very smart or talented cause of my quirk' method."

"Well, the Underground Shogun seemed to be taking care of him well enough. Just, be careful." Karen said with worry. "I still think you're too young to know any of this stuff."

"If auntie Circe said that I have a part to play, I have a part to play."

"Auntie Circe is also the one who turned guys into animals and got weirded out when she got a furry for a boyfriend once."

"Either way, you should keep yourself safe and distant. Observe as much as possible." Karen said as she played an old video on the e-paper. The sound of Izuku singing Carmen's Habanera from the old video echoed in the room.

Sharon watched her mom's eyes appeared to glaze over the moment certain high notes were heard as she was in deep thought.

"What are you, Izuku Midoriya?" she heard her mom muttered out.

Sharon mentally wondered that as well as she passed the time writing symbols on her notebook.

One thing's for certain, she wanted to show her aunts the old video of Izuku from the viral video. There was something in the way he belted the music that she really wanted to show them.

Location Unknown

Amazon Cell, basic cell, low priority
- Agent Sappho, subverted
- Agent Hippolyta, subverted
- Agent Otrera, subversion in progress…
- Agent Circe, subversion in progress…



Cassandra Cell, research cell, top priority
- Agent Yudkowsky, location unknown…
- Agent Bostrom, subverted
- Agent Asimov, location unknown…
- Agent Conner, location unknown…



Matrioshka Cell, research cell, top priority
- Agent Vinge, subversion in progress…
- Agent Turing, eliminated
- Agent Moore, subverted
- Agent Kurzweil, location unknown…

Case Roko's Basilisk Hack, 58% of agents subverted…

Continue current objective…

Hisashi Midoriya

Months passed as Hisashi lived out his domestic life, planning out ways to convince Izuku off the hero plan. He knew forcing the issue would only result in the repeat with his brother, the false smiles and the eventual back stab in the name of idealism. But he stopped himself before he fell into that familiar mental spiral. He has a family now, an accepting wife and wonderful sons that kept him stable from that storm.

He wrote down the list of other occupations that might interest Izuku more than hero work, and hopefully more than the blonde idiot, as he cooked some sandwiches for an afternoon snack to go with the iced tea Inko made earlier. His wife was resting on the couch, reading one of the novels she was planning on finishing. He knew it's more likely to be electronic files but there's nothing like a physical book, the dead tree format, he recalled the ancient joke name.

A ringing phone interrupted his thoughts.

"I'll get it." he said as he grabbed his phone. "Hello? Midoriya residence, Hisashi speaking."

"Ah, Mr. Midoriya, there was an incident at UA. Your son entered a fist fight against a student from the hero course. Nearly used his quirk, from what I heard." the secretary said. "They're both in the principal's office at the moment."

"I see. We'll be there." he said as he ended the call. He turned at his wife. "Tenko started a fight."

The two soon headed to UA and was guided by one of the staff to the principal's office. Already, the hero Endeavour was inside, along with the principal and the boys.

"Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Midoriya, please, take a seat before we begin." Principal Nedzu said. A glance at Tenko and Endeavour's son showed a black eye and some healed bruises. Recovery Girl's quirk, he guessed. A teacher was also there, a rather scruffy looking guy in dark clothing and a scarf. "An hour ago, young Midoriya Tenko met young Todoroki Touya. The moment he learned of Todoroki's name, he asked about his parentage and was suddenly filled with rage that he punched him in the face. The two then fought rather fiercely before the staff stopped the fighting." Nedzu said as he glanced at Tenko's records.

Hisashi glanced at Tenko with a raised eyebrow, subtly activating his Tell the Truth quirk. He knew he had to be careful with his questioning when it's on. It doesn't focus well.

"So, why did you decide to go all out on Todoroki Touya?" he asked, mentally putting a note on his son's therapy.

Tenko mumbled out a reply.

"What is it dear?" Inko said as tears fell from Tenko's face. The scruffy guy used his quirk at Tenko, hair floating in the process.

"It was his fault!" Tenko screamed as he started to scratch at himself while pointing at Endeavor. "He killed them! He caused the great Fuyuki Fire! My family would have been still alive if it weren't for him!"

Inko went to remind Tenko of his breathing exercises. Touya looked at his father like he was willing to murder him right there. Endeavor himself looked rather resigned on that reveal.

"Care to explain, Mr. Todoroki? I do recall a very tired social worker dropping Tenko to my family a week or so after the fire. He was driven to figure out the cause of the fire and now I hear that you were the one to cause the fire that burned a city and killed off thousands? What would the media say about this…" Hisashi led the questioning as Nedzu took a sip of his tea.

Endeavor glared at him before sighing.

"I wasn't there to cause the fire." he began, silencing Touya with a glare. "I'm not an idiot. Gasoline could turn water into gasoline and it was a stormy night. I got a call, telling me to go to Fuyuki city to take part in stopping the villain. I made a promise to myself I wouldn't return to that damned place. Last I want was my father and brother rubbing in on my face about their perfect little family."

"Brother?" Touya muttered in surprise.

"Todoroki Hijiri. My younger brother. The Todoroki family existed as a long line of Shinto priests in Fuyuki city. When I was young, I was deemed too impure by my father to inherit the shrine. 'Touched by Hellfire' he said before putting it on my quirk registry. The abuse I lived under him made me move out and took on the path of heroics, to prove to him that I'm not some hellish abomination. Meanwhile, Hijiri got everything. Even his name was a sign of his favoritism, given it has the kanji for 'fire' and 'saint'. Self-entitled asshole in my opinion. On the night of the fire, I was ordering the capture team from a makeshift operator center. I saw what happened from the cameras. My brother went to stop him with his holy flame quirk by an old oil refinery, probably to show that he was better than me. The rest, as they say, was history. How he survived the explosion, I would never know."

"Then why," Tenko said after calming himself down. "Why did it say Todoroki Enji was the one who caused the fire?"

"Torodoki Ryu has influence and connections. Never understood how or why. Given how much he despised me as a literal hell spawn, pinning the blame on me instead of his perfect Hijiri was obvious. Last time he spoke to me, he tried to ruin my marriage."

"What you mean ruin your marriage? You put mom in a mental hospital!" Touya shouted.

"It was a marriage of convenience for the both of us. I wanted a heir. She wanted to get out of her family's shadow. The Miyamizu family are famous, especially her siblings going around the world to fix the planet's climate. Father called me after the marriage, congratulating me for marrying into the Miyamizus without his arranging. Pissed me off at the idea of him wanting to unite the families like that."

"Wow. I'm from a long line of assholes." Touya muttered.

"Is there a reason why Todoroki Ryu was… happy to learn about your marriage?" Hisashi said, trying to regain control of the line of questioning.

"I did some digging after the call. Apparently, the Todoroki and Miyamizu families are among some important ten Shinto family lines, passed down father to son like for the Todorokis, or mother to daughter like for the Miyamizus. If I were to guess, Ryu wanted a daughter with the so called Miyamizu power of prophecy or some nonsense like that. What I did found was that the Miyamizu women have a higher tendency for either schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder, based on what the doctor told me."

"Is that why you kept mom in the mental hospital!? Away from us!?"

Endeavor gave a rather deadpan glare at his son.

"Since when did I ban anyone from visiting your mother? She was the one who wanted more kids after you. It's more for her sake given she was dealing with depression and flights of fancy before she had her breakdown. She's feeling better since then but her personality switches still remained. I called her parents after the breakdown and they were very cryptic about it. It was mostly 'let it run its course' type of advice. Not exactly what one needs to do for mental health problems."

"I'm sure it's rather lonely for her." Inko said to herself as she returned to her seat once she's certain Tenko would stay calm.

"She would, if she didn't talked about the things she claimed to have seen when the other personality took over. The things she said was a bit shocking, to say the least. Read like something from the old sci-fi horror novels about technology..." Endeavor said before he noticed something was amiss. Hisashi turned off the Tell the Truth quirk.

"I do find it fascinating how you managed to turn a meeting about your children into an impromptu interview with Endeavor's family history but I am not surprised, given that you are the CEO of the Midori Media Conglomerate." Nedzu said with a sip of his tea. The teacher and Endeavor glanced at Hisashi.

"It seems my reputation preceded me. Yes, I am the infamous and secretive media baron."

"And you're willing to get payed to shut up about what I said?" Endeavor asked, to which his son glared at him.

"Perhaps, or maybe I'll just keep it to myself."

"I'll pay you to go public on it then." Almost everyone looked at him in shock or surprise.

"It would be difficult to prove it, if what you said was true." Inko began. "Todoroki Ryu would have deep pockets and wide connections, not to mention he would use anything in his power to defend his son and heir from the consequences of the fire…"

"I could give my research as evidence." Tenko spoke up.

"Don't forget Tenko, we'll need to double check on your research." Meaning the research needed to be ironclad in its legality and he knew how illegal the acquisition of such research was. Inko gave her business card to Endeavor. "Since this minor issue revealed a major conspiracy, I'm sure we could work together in rooting out such corruption, as long as we agree that what happened today was simply nothing more than an unfortunate act of long withheld, if misblamed, impulse. Don't you agreed, Mr. Todoroki? Anything to right wrongs and put the perpetrators to justice, after all."

Hisashi took a deep breath to stop himself from falling in love with his wife in front of everyone in the room.

"So, we're in agreement?" Hisashi asked.

"It appears so. Eraserhead will escort you all out. I must thank you all for giving your time." Principal Nedzu said with a sip of his tea. Everyone stood up and headed out.

"... I'm turning into my father?" he overheard Touya mumbled out in shock. It sounded deliciously ironic. His wife simply patted his back and suggested Tenko's therapist for any possible issues.

"UA has a guidance counselor." Eraserhead stated.

"And I'm sure they do an excellent job at it." Inko replied before she shushed Tenko from mumbling out his own shocking realization, given how wide his eyes were and how he was staring at nothing in particular. "Hopefully there won't be any future trouble now. I suggest getting a hobby. My husband goes through hobbies every few months or so." she then smiled at Touya. "If you want, maybe something that would be useful to your quirk, like cooking."

Hisashi simply grinned. Leave it to his darling wife to pull people along to her point of view. Too bad she didn't have much in her to lead his kind of life style.

An assumption that was broken that evening, when she really played the part of Mazu, ordering that Akaguro fellow to look into Todoroki Ryu with Tenko's help. All in an air of cold comfort. The plan was simply chilling. Leaving him alive while striving to expose him to the masses in such a light that no one would want to associate with him. An agony by a thousand small pulls. All perfectly legal with his media help, her legal expertise, Tenko's programming savvy, and Akaguro's burning crusade.

He kissed her right there after the criminal pageantry was finished, much to Tenko's disgust and Kurogiri's amusement.
 
Back
Top