Further Beyond (MHA/Exalted)

[FixerUpper]

It was the weekend. Two days ago, in a memory that would forevermore be seared into his brain, Midoriya had swallowed a strand of All Might's hair.

It had been, uh, kind of, uh.

It had been what it was. He wasn't sure if he should be forming an opinion on it yet.

Now, however, the sun was shining, the water cold and the sands of Dagoba beach were pristine and empty of people. He and All Might were seated in a meditative lotus pose.

"Do you feel it?" All Might asked, eyes closed.

All Might, with his full-body swimsuit, looked like a bodybuilder from a different century.

Midoriya breathed and focused. There was a warmth at the center of his chest. It was almost outcompeted by the sunlight bubbling beneath his skin, but only barely.

If he had to use a word to describe it, it would be… strong.

"Yes."

"Right now," All Might said gravely, "do not use One for All."

Midoriya blinked before remembering his eyes were supposed to be closed.

"Um. Okay."

"It can strengthen your body – but it can also strengthen your quirk! Right now, I want you to try it with the latter rather than the former. Having a more powerful shield is one thing, having a too-powerful body will make you explode."

Midoriya took a deep, jittery breath before nodding firmly, trying to relax. "Right."

He just had to feed that power to his quirk right?

So, if he focused on the feeling of his quirk – of a winter sun, a summer morn, of pure, exhilarating power - on the one hand, and the feeling of One for All, of a raging bonfire, burning in his chest, on the other…

All Might cracked open an eye. "Is it working?"

Midoriya frowned. "I… I think so. Maybe?"

"Well, give it a try."

He did, face turning into a mass of wrinkles.

He looked, not to put too crass a point on it, extremely constipated.

"Hrm," said All Might, snapping a quick photo. "Well, keep trying!"

Midoriya kept trying.

He thought of sunlight, of electromagnetism and what he knew about the fundamental forces of the universe.

Nothing.

He thought of his training, of cleaning the beach, of doing lunges through town, of working with weights, of doing isometric exercises, of strengthening the light so that it existed at the level of his skin but did not peek out.

Nothing.

He thought of Kacchan and his terrified face, subsumed by sludge. He thought of Kacchan, face curled into a rictus of desperate hate, exploding towards him. He thought of the girl, the barreling car, the careless driver, still on his phone.

Light began to leak from his pores, but it was nothing new. This was the baseline manifestation of his electromagnetism quirk. Still, he tried to feed it that inner fire of One for All, because All Might had-

His right arm exploded.

Muscles developed over the course of the past half year flashed into prominence, veins bulging, nearly half again as big they'd been a second ago, every fiber flexing and tensing with unparalleled strength. The power he had thought of as being merely warm before became ferociously, overwhelmingly hot.

What a truly awesome power.

And it was all-

"Young Midoriya, stop!"

The fear in his mentor's voice poured ice down his spine.

He stopped.

When he opened his eyes, it was to the sight of his arm covered in a thicket's worth of purpling bruises, skin looking like it wanted to peel.

The pain hit a moment later as All Might prodded his injury.

"Ow!"

"Apologies, young man, but I must check!" the pinching and prodding fingers became more invasive, forcing a tear to his eyes, "It looks like you have no fractures, but this still needs to be iced. You are lucky that your bones did not grind themselves to dust using my power!"

"YeaoWCH, All Might, I'm not sure why it didn't work-"

"Hush. Focus on yourself, for once. In the future, your image of your power must be rock solid. The slightest distortion and this is the result. Still, I'm surprised. I half expected all your bones to shatter the first time you used it." He laughed. "You're much sturdier than I thought you'd be, even after seeing that car crash! You may become a worthy successor to my power before you even enter UA!"

"Really?"

All Might's mighty face took on a thoughtful mien.

"Well, maybe, I myself was born without a quirk: it is possible that One For All acclimatizes better to the quirkless than those with existing quirks."

"Hm," said Midoriya.

"Still, I'm sure I heard my own master say that One For All adds to the power of your own quirk."

Midoriya's eyes grew wide. As a boy who prided himself on his own thoroughness, this was a brand-new data point that he really should have thought of considering the nature of One For All. "Your master?"

All Might waved it off. "A story for another time! Let's get that arm iced, young man."

A sling and an icepack later, Midoriya was looking surprisingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from the front of the convenience store, his entire body trembling with suppressed curiosity.

All Might, emaciated, held out a bottle of mineral water. Midoriya accepted it, eyes still sparkling.

"You're not going to be able to leave this alone, are you?" All Might said ruefully.

Any other boy might have given a straightforward answer. Midoriya's face wrinkled in thought as he uncapped his water bottle.

"You're too honest!" the hero laughed. "Very well. Let's take a stroll. I shall tell you the very basics. But I must swear you to secrecy – what you learn here today, but a handful of people know."

His next words, spoken in a low whisper, put a damper on Midoriya's spirits.

"And most of them are dead."

-----

Gulls cawed.

Near the water, the beach was surprisingly loud, the surf lapping at the sands. The two of them sat in a companionable silence. Midoriya took a sip of his water, sneaking glances at All Might, who appeared to have decided that he needed to be in his bulked-up form for this conversation.

"I find myself unsure how to proceed," All Might admitted. "I have have never talked about my mentor before to someone who did not know her. In many ways she was an open book, but in some matters… she guarded her secrets jealously. You deserve to know everything, and yet, I do not wish to betray her trust." He turned to his pupil, expression grave. "Do you understand, young Midoriya?"

He nodded his head. "Y-yes."

"Very well. Where would you like me to begin?"

"Um, what was your master like?"

There was a faraway look in the superhero's eyes before they flashed back to the present. "Honestly… your own mother reminds me of her."

Midoriya tried to imagine his mom as All Might and felt like he was going to get an aneurysm. Mom was wonderful and the best and everything, but she wasn't… he snuck another glance at All Might and his rippling musculature, that.

All Might noticed and guffawed. "Do not think so shallowly, my boy! It is the spirit that animated them – the fierce protectiveness, the wisdom of experience, and the ability to know when to push on alone and when to ask for help. A very formidable woman, your mother."

Midoriya nodded.

"So too, was my master."

He was quiet, for a long time, long enough that Midoriya thought that that might be the end of it, when he began to speak again.

"When it comes to those who are being saved – you can't just save their bodies. If you are to be a real hero, you must think about their hearts too."

All Might suddenly turned towards him, index fingers propping up the corners of his mouth.

"No matter what happens, smile. For those who smile are the strongest of all."

And his teeth twinkled in the sunlight before he let his hands go down.

"That cornerstone of my own heroic philosophy was a lesson she taught me. You have a strong heart, Midoriya. I fear it is too strong, sometimes." Then, a complete non sequitur: "Has young Bakugou bothered you?"

Midoriya blinked, surprised. "K-kacchan? N-no. Not since that day! And none of his friends either."

"That's good, that's good." All Might drummed his fingers restlessly on his knees. "I will say no more on that subject, then."

Midoriya nodded his head, relieved. Bakugou might no longer be a bad subject, but it was not a good one either.

"S-so did your Master teach you anything else?" He quailed in front of All Might's suddenly intense look. "I mean, if your smile is hers, she must have been an amazing teacher!"

The look softened. "She was. Much better than I, for all that I am doing my best. You are more than I deserve, my boy."

Eh?

"Focus on the fundamentals." He held up a fist before extending it outwards. "An amateur's punch is nothing to fear, while the punch of a master martial artist is a wonder to behold. Pay attention to your form for from there springs your power." He paused, scratched his head. "Ah, well. Something like that. My Master did say I was a natural at it."

'A disgusting once-in-ten-lifetimes genius,' was more accurate, but words-shmerds.

Midoriya was already mimicking him, but stopped, his hand caught in All Might's own palm.

"Do you remember what happened to your other arm?" the hero asked drily. "Today, and possibly for the next week, you must devote yourself to getting better."

-----

The next day. Dagoba Beach.

All Might stared at Midoriya's arm incredulously, poking at the unbroken, unblemished skin. He'd known the boy could recover quickly, but this level, though minor in the grand scheme of things, was unheard of outside of actual regeneration quirks.

"It healed overnight?"

"Um. Yes?" Midoriya said. What he did not add was that by the time he'd gotten home, the sling was unnecessary and the bruises faded until they'd looked a week old, rather than new. It'd made explaining things to Mom completely unnecessary.

All Might's eyes narrowed shrewdly. "An effect of your quirk?"

"Yes. But it makes sense, doesn't it?" Before All Might could question that, Midoriya added: "It feels like it's sunlight, but there must be a purely biological component to it when I harden my body." He flexed his power, and the change, almost imperceptible, save for a shift of his muscles, came and went. "Or it might have to do with how my power is generated. But it's definitely quirk-related."

All Might nodded slowly.

"If that's the case… ah, I suppose I see why you had difficulty joining your quirk to One for All: changes to your body were part of your quirk to begin with."

Midoriya was beaming as he nodded. "I thought so too! And if One for All functions the way you says it does, that means that I can compound the effects of my quirk and One for All and create-"

Two hands settled on his shoulders. They were smaller and thinner than they should have been, the deep-set, sunken blue eyes staring into his own serious.

"Midoriya my boy, I do not wish to hinder your enthusiasm, but this is even more reason to take care. I do not believe One for All was ever joined to a body augmentation quirk. It would be no exaggeration to say that the results could be catastrophic. You must go slowly and carefully – do you understand?"

Midoriya took a deep breath through his nose. "Yes, sir!"

"I want you to think back to yesterday and hold the image in your head of activating One for All to enhance your body. Do you recall it?"

"Uh, ye-yeah?"

"Good, now all you need to do is tone it down."

Midoriya frowned. "Tone it-?"

"You delivered most, if not all of the power of One For All to your arm. You must limit it." He used his right hand to punch his open palm, cupping it demonstratively. "Your body must be able to hold onto the power: if it lets go, it breaks." His hand let go, fingers waggling, miming a broken toy, or maybe a plane. "Only use as much of that might as you can handle. Once you can do that, all you need to do is develop your body until it is capable of withstanding the full might of my might joined to your own!"

At the end of his last sentence All Might inflated, striking a heroic pose – only to deflate again, almost immediately after.

He coughed, blood running out of his mouth.

"All Might are you feeling-"

He was waved off. "I am fine, this is normal. But for you, today, I want to see some more fine control. Do you want to try using One For All again?"

There really was only one possible answer to that question.

"Yes!"

-------

This was probably what it was like seeing your child drive for the first time, Toshinori Yagi thought, watching young Midoriya breathe, wisps of light streaming upwards out of his skin, his green hair waving upwards in a gusts of self-generated wind.

Except instead of a nice little compact Hyundai, he'd given young Midoriya a nuclear tank and half the buttons were labeled 'self-destruct'.

How had his own master dealt with this tension?

Probably by remembering what it was they were fighting for. For her, a world without All for One, for him a world where everyone could smile.

Neither had achieved their dreams, but…

You had to trust the next generation. One for All was wish that echoed through the ages from one hero to the next.

Toshinori Yagi, not for the first time, wondered if he should have had Recovery Girl on hand, just in case. He himself had not truly needed any such healing, his body acclimating to the quirk surprisingly quickly, but although young Midoriya was brilliant in many ways (excessively so, even, his natural genius hidden by a long bullying campaign), in this specific domain he seemed to be less capable than his predecessor.

When Midoriya fell over, somehow having managed to make all his muscles simultaneously seize and cramp up, Toshinori Yagi had the hot compresses ready.

------

They were taking a break.

"When you punch, you must put your entire body into the punch."

Midoriya nodded, sketching furiously into his notebook.

Okay, so this was technically a workout, but it was a break from mastering One for All, so it was a break, kinda-sorta.

And learning to punch from All Might was like a dream. Even in his emaciated form, his expertise was clear.

"You lead in with your foot," he said, demonstrating a stomp that in his hero form would have cracked concrete, but here just made the sand depress downwards, "That in-step will be the foundation that will allow you to transmit your power."

He punched forward, arm twisting slightly. Weak and anemic as he was, it still made a sharp shah! sound as it cut through the air.

"You will be tempted to hit horizontally from the side," he said, swinging his fist in a slow arc, that traveled in front of his face. "For now, do not! Your fastest punch is a punch that moves in a straight line."

Hesitantly, Midoriya repeated the steps to himself in a mumbling breath, putting some finishing details to his sketch.

Then, he put the notebook down, stood up, took a deep breath, mumbled a bit more to himself, put a foot forward, twisted his body like he saw All Might twist his body and… punched.

Hrm. The sound wasn't the same at all. Still, All Might nodded approvingly.

"You have the right idea, but unless you plan on using One for All, that is an attack that would not hurt a fly, let alone a villain! Try again!"

He tried again. It still wasn't the right sound. How had All Might done it? Perhaps it had something to do with his wrist? The rotation of his shoulder?

"Hands at eye level, tighten your guard, step in and punch!" All Might barked.

Midoriya leapt to comply.

"Again!"

"Again!"

"Again!"

He'd lost count of how many punches he'd thrown by the time All Might stopped him. Sweat beaded down his body, and his breath came in ragged, full-body pants.

All Might, of course, looked none of the worse for wear.

"When using One for All, the rules will be different, but not so much so that this training is useless! Never forget that just as your fists are a weapon, so is One for All a weapon. Use it wisely and use it well."

"Yes…" he wheezed, "sir."

"Take five minutes to breathe. Then we'll go back to One for All training."

He all but collapsed onto the sand, head hanging down. "Yes, sir!"

"You're probably wondering why you're tired, young Midoriya."

The thought had crossed his mind, conceited as it was.

"Every sport specializes in a certain subset of muscles and skills. A runner is not a rower and a rower is not a hero! Combat is one of the most demanding. Men and women who can run marathons could very well run out of gas within less than half an hour when relying purely on their own muscle power to fight and not their quirks. Even if it is your punch that ends the fight, it would be a mistake to consider the step-in unimportant, or the force generated from your waist, hips and shoulder inconsequential."

"Yes, sir."

"Bringing out exactly the right amount of power to end a fight, using precisely the right technique at the right moment," All Might mimed another punch that cut through the air, "that is the essence of using One for All effectively. Otherwise it is just blindly lashing out with your power."

Midoriya nodded, eyes shining.

"I see that you have thought of something."

He had been thinking of One for All as a lock and key, a switch that was either on and off.

But that wasn't true, was it?

No, One for All was more like… like a gargantuan mountain of tennis balls. His body was swamped trying to handle their entirety. But really, he just needed enough for one ball at a time.

"Your metaphors could use some work!" was All Might's opinion when he told him. "But if that's the image you're going with, try it! There's only so much power you need. One for All is generous – too generous! Learn to refuse it!"

Midoriya breathed in.

He breathed out.

He stood up, taking up a stance. All Might was silent, watchful.

He punched once, experimentally. He could hear that slice of air. Not as good as All Might's, not yet, but getting there. Now, to give it some weight…

He took in a deep breath and closed his eyes.

He stood at the top of a fathomlessly tall mountain.

Above him, the sky was so blue it hurt to look at and the world below so small as to be but a speck. Clouds floated below while a sun, paradoxically far and yet closer than he had ever seen it, illuminating all. He could look out to the horizon from this point and the world was a vast, unhindered plane, stretching out into seeming infinity.

For some reason, it didn't seem… appropriate to use the image of a bajillion tennis balls, not here. He looked down and picked up a pebble.

Yes. He'd start with this much.

'Pointless.'

He whipped his head up and looked up and found himself staring at… a smudge. It was an outline in the air, like a shadow given shape and volume and texture, spread out to occupy the space a man would have.

Midoriya looked around. No other nightmare shadows seemed to be popping out of the mental woodwork – or mountain, in this case.

He waved a hand through it, and it was like passing a hand through water, ripples marring its surface.

'Stop that.'

Midoriya recoiled. For a second there, he'd thought it'd been his own self-doubts or something, manifesting themselves in an ambiguous way, but, nope, this was, well, this was getting creepy.

Yup, time to move on.

He took a deep breath, ignored the shadow thing and punched.

This time, it was like the air itself had been ripped asunder, blowing his hair back and sending the sand flying away from him in a perfect circle around him.

He opened his eyes. All Might was beaming.

"Very good. Now do it again."

-------

"A shadow?" All Might asked, a hand on his chin.

Flopped down onto the sand, the straw of a bottle emerging from his mouth, Midoriya nodded weakly.

If doing nothing but punch for hours on end had been grueling, doing the same with One for All had been crushing. He hadn't lost control and exploded or anything, but still, all his muscles burned.

(And not the burn of a good sprint or a thousand lunges, more like the burn of an oil tanker exploding, but inside of him.)

"Yeah. It was… next to me," his eyebrows made a valiant attempt to communicate its proximity. "I put my hand through it, and it said 'stop that.'"

All Might blinked down at him then, surprisingly, shuddered. "Eesh, well, that sounds creepy."

"So, it's not something to do with, errr, One for All?"

All Might had a faraway look in his eyes. "It certainly has not happened to me! But I promise to look into it. I will tell you if anything shows up."

Midoriya was desperately curious as to how All Might would 'look into it', but quashed the impulse to ask.

"Thank you, sir."

"My boy, do not look so downcast - your growth has exceeded my wildest expectations!"

Midoriya felt himself swelling with pride.

It popped a moment later.

"Which is why I believe we must find you a new mentor."

"Eh?"

"The more experiences you gain, the greater your foundation. The things you can learn from me are limited."

Midoriya nodded, but automatically. He had a look of complete befuddlement upon his face and this newest pronouncement did not appear to fix any gaps in his comprehension.

"My boy," All Might said seriously, "why do you think it is heroes-in-training go to school? It was not so long ago, after all, that there were no such schools at all – merely master-apprentice or hero-and-sidekick relationships."

A question, posed straightforwardly, appeared to break him out of his funk.

"A standardized curriculum raises the overall level of heroes everywhere?" he hazarded.

"That is one aspect to it, but another is this: you learn by doing. By practicing with me, you learn to fight as All Might and fight against All Might. Which is no bad thing: All Might is quite formidable. But what do you do against an opponent that can fly? Or one that can see the future? Or one that can summon lasers from any reflective surface?"

Midoriya was nodding now, looking longingly toward the knapsack where he kept his trusty hero notebook.

"You are growing so fast that you're already at the stage where you would benefit from a broader variety of experiences, young Midoriya. What say you?"

He sat up and immediately regretted it, his entire body crackling with pain. "Yes, sir!"

--------

The next day, wearing his best formalwear into an actual hero's HQ, he was staring up at a very, very intimidating-looking Gang Orca decked out in full hero gear – which resembled nothing more and nothing less than a mafioso-like business suit.

The pressure he exerted simply standing still was amazing.

"Hi," he said, gulping and offering a shy wave.

The hero took one look at him, picked him up and threw him to the side.

Midoriya rolled to his feet, hands already up in a stance that he had practiced thousands of times. The throw had surprised him, but it hadn't actually hurt him per se. Somehow, Gang Orca was already next to him, his red eyes staring at him, the coattails of his suit still moving forward due to momentum.

"You wish to be an intern?" Gang Orca asked.

"Y-yes?" said Midoriya.

A large red eye creased. A hand that could have engulfed his entire arm was extended and helped him to his feet.

"Then, let's start the interview."

 

[Mother Nyx]

This is honestly great. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Slayer Anderson]

B-but y-you're not religiously adhering to the Stations of Canon!

This is the worst form of heresy! Originality!

I like it.

 

[WeylandSmith]

Another great chapter! The bit where he was trying to enhance his exaltation with a quirk was pretty funny.

What really took the prize, though, was the description of Mt. Meru. Can't wait to see more!

 

[Young Pyromancer]

So, is the mistake that one for all and the exhaltation are clashing? Or another being is exhibiting force on him somehow?

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

So, is the mistake that one for all and the exhaltation are clashing? Or another being is exhibiting force on him somehow?

Click to shrink...

I suspect it's the Past Life. The question is whether it's someone fun like "Sorcery for everyone, and it's not my problem what they do with it!" Salina or someone FUN like "Omniscient AI-managed police state for everyone, and it's not my problem that anyone might be innocent!" Bright Shattered Ice.

 

[Baran3]

"Yes. But it makes sense, doesn't it?" Before All Might could question that, Midoriya added: "It feels like it's sunlight, but there must be a purely biological component to it when I harden my body." He flexed his power, and the change, almost imperceptible, save for a shift of his muscles, came and went. "Or it might have to do with how my power is generated. But it's definitely quirk-related."

Click to shrink...

Oh dear god, He's limiting himself by pigeonholing himself.

Need a dream of his past lives.

"When you punch, you must put your entire body into the punch."

Click to shrink...

… That almost exactly how the 2°ed described the Solar Hero Form.

No, One for All was more like… like a gargantuan mountain of tennis balls. His body was swamped trying to handle their entirety. But really, he just needed enough for one ball at a time.

Click to shrink...

He just described Essence divided in motes.

What really took the prize, though, was the description of Mt. Meru. Can't wait to see more!

Click to shrink...

THAT IT! Why didn't I recognize it… I knew the shadow was a solar of the past.

Now the big question is who..?

Either a canon character or an OC.

 

[FixerUpper]

Oh dear god, He's limiting himself by pigeonholing himself.

Need a dream of his past lives.

Click to shrink...

This has always been one of Midoriya's biggest weaknesses and I'm glad someone caught it.

 

[FallenPears]

Yep this is great. Midoriya is gonna be a monster by the time school starts, and that's at his current pace assuming he doesn't figure out any Solar stuff.

I am almost a little worried about how powerful he might end up being to be honest, though Todoroki and similar levels of quirk means the ceiling for 'so powerful it breaks any hope for plot' is pretty high thankfully.

 

[Larekko12]

How many months has it be with the researcher exaltation and he still thinks it's electro magnetism when he can't move shit?


I said it before. Almighty is poison. He's unhealthy. He's suicidal. He's turning our boy into trash. There are science boys hunted by an evil empire that have made more progress than him. Who fucked with the instinct on his shard.

 

[FixerUpper]

How many months has it be with the researcher exaltation and he still thinks it's electro magnetism when he can't move shit?


I said it before. Almighty is poison. He's unhealthy. He's suicidal. He's turning our boy into trash. There are science boys hunted by an evil empire that have made more progress than him. Who fucked with the instinct on his shard.

Click to shrink...

In all fairness, Izuku started off with ones and twos in all physical stats and zero in resistance and athletics.

You're going to have to give this fic a chance to bake a bit before casting judgment on All Might. I mean, I don't exactly disagree with you, he's arguably more competent here than in canon (canonically he's both reasonably clueless as both a first-time teacher and reasonably impatient as a man suffering from a severe chronic illness and uncertain about how much time he has left to teach Midoriya which leads to a bunch of missteps), but if we ignore solar exaltations as being real things and rather just 'roles characters play' All Might is the sole exalt in a world without any. He can carry the weight of an entire society without buckling and is so far and above the rest of the pack that it's treated as insane for anyone to try to surpass him.

It's not his fault he gifted Midoriya a superweapon and started tutoring him in using it and at some point when he wasn't looking it turned around and went 'Dad, I don't want to be a champion weightlifter, I want to go and cure cancer. Also, I have magic powers and a voice in my head is speaking to me.'

Update out tomorrow. I wanna say I have a backlog for a few weeks so that I can keep up with a Sunday or Monday update, but this internship arc is being greatly modified so we will see how things progress.

 

[Teiwaz]

I like this.
The prose is a bit colour tinged but its still readable for this dumb ass old lady.

 

[FixerUpper]

"I did not expect you to contact me," Gang Orca said over a mug which steamed gently in his hand. The room Midoriya found himself in looked like any average conference room, very white, very round, glass walls to the one side, a holographic projector the table's center. Its one unique touch was the one chair that had been built much bigger than the rest to accommodate Gang Orca's build. "You did not strike me as the type."

"Um, well," Midoriya said, squirming. He looked down at the Gang Orca-branded mug. "I didn't really expect to, either?"

The hero gave him a measured glance. "Are you sure this is not an attempt to wheedle a recommendation out of me?"

"N-no! Of course not!"

"Good, then. I did not feel it completely right for you to gain no real accolades for what you did."

Midoriya saw where this was going and blanched. "I'm – I'm not asking to intern with you because I saved your-"

"But because you want to be a better hero," Gang Orca finished making a flippant 'get on with it' gesture. "Yes, I understand. But, the fact is you chose me, because saving my niece made for an excellent introduction, did it not? Students with your aspirations are generally training and studying. Why seek an internship?"

"I need more experience."

"A solid answer, if imprecise. Just what sort of experiences are you seeking?"

That was… that was an awfully good question. He paused to think. As the silence stretched, Gang Orca spoke, setting his mug down.

"Let me put it this way. You are not yet certified. Heroes assume responsibility for all interns for the duration of their internship. Why should I take the risk of allowing you to intern with us? There is little prestige attached to your name and while you would be volunteering your time with us, mine is not so small a company that I can't afford to turn you away."

Midoriya felt a pit yawning open beneath his feet and shrank away from it.

"I want to save people."

"Yes, but seeing your tendency to risk your own life while doing so, I would put that as a demerit rather than a merit."

Urk.

Midoriya began to sweat. Was this what it was like interviewing for a job? He hadn't really mentally prepared himself for something like this. All Might had suggested this to him, but just because he'd suggested it hadn't meant that it would just happen.

He breathed in. Breathed out. Organized his thoughts.

"I – I know. But, I've been doing lifeguarding training and combat training and volunteering with Four Arms' Four Meals program, but more than anything I want to help."

"So you do!" said Gang Orca ironically.

He looked up. "There are things I can only learn here in the real world with a pro hero like you. If – if you think I'm not ready though, I'll accept it. But please, give me a chance!"

He bowed his head.

Gang Orca shifted in his chair. "Well, you sure are an earnest one. Very well! Since you asked for it, I'll give you that chance. I did call you one with the heart of a true hero on national television, after all.

"You did?" Midoriya squeaked.

Gang Orca coughed. "Nevermind that. Let's talk about your duties."

Gang Orca hit one of the glowing icons on the table and with a sputtering whir, the holographic projector burst to life, projecting glowing pixels around the room that fuzzed before clearing up.

Clips – many of which Midoriya recognized – resolved themselves, rectangles of light like a multitude of TV screens. Their angle, however, was odd, familiar scenes of Gang Orca's heroism, but played back from unfamiliar, jittery vantage points.

It took him a moment to realize it: these were clips taken from the bodycams of Gang Orca's sidekicks.

"An internship is three things: a chance to gain experience, a chance to impress us pro heroes and a chance, however miniscule, to impress the public. With me, however, that last thing isn't going to happen."

Gang Orca gestured and the scenes across the room were replaced by images of Gang Orca's sidekicks. Dressed in identical, anonymizing black bodysuits they looked more like a villain's army than a hero's sidekicks. Not an inch of skin would show when wearing these: even the eyes were hidden, the masks displaying instead six angular, dark green eyepieces.

"I'm greedy. I'll say that upfront. Just as I'm taking on all the risk, I want all the credit. If you want to go out into the field, you'll have to wear this. Are you sure you still want to intern here?"

Looking at Midoriya's sparkling eyes, there was little doubt as to what answer he would give.

"Can I really wear it?"

"Maybe." He snapped his fingers. The holographic projector shut off. "My sidekicks are a motley bunch. However, you're not even on their level – you're just an intern. If you want to wear the costume, you will have to earn it."

Gang Orca stood and started walking. After a moment's pause, Midoriya stood and hastened after him. He caught up – Gang Orca had some long strides – just as they were getting to the elevator.

"Um, how do I do that?" he asked, squeezing inside. It started to move downwards a second later.

"The former manager of this place would have worked you to the bone asking you to climb the ranks. But I'mma little different."

Midoriya turned to stare. Was it just him or had Gang Orca's style of speaking changed, just then?

"First, you need to establish your place in our little hierarchy."

"Eh?"

"Basically, you gotta show em' who's boss."

No, he wanted to say, he'd understood the literal Japanese meaning of his words, he just wanted to understand why-

The elevator doors chimed and opened. The space beyond was much darker than the within the elevator, for all practical purposes pitch-black and Midoriya yelped as a hand nearly as broad as his back pushed him – gently – into that darkness.

"Got one rule for you here: no lightshow. Other than that, do whatever."

He turned around to see Gang Orca giving him a thumbs up.

"Um?" he said.

The elevator doors closed.

Midoriya turned around. It seemed like something out there in the darkness was… sloshing.

"H-hello?" Midoriya asked.

If silence had a quality, this one was one that was busy. He had the impression that a multitude of eyes were focused in on his direction.

Hesitantly, he said: "I-I-I'm Midoriya Izuku! I'm u-u-uh-pplying to be an intern here! Um, Gang Orca…"

Something slimy touched the side of his face.

He shrieked and punched out, only to hit nothing but air. A cackling voice sounded from above him before crawling away, the noise oddly… sticky.

"Mr. Devilfish, do not tease the youngster," said noble-sounding voice. "We are here to test, not haze."

"Y-y-you're the one who's gonna haze him, I-Ikkaku," the voice from above said, stuttering – actually, more like sputtering, spittle flying freely. "No one else wants to actually f-f-fight you combat freak."

"But how better to test his mettle than through honorable combat!" said the voice from in front, sounding hurt.

"Boys, boys, boys, settle, down," the voice was mellifluous and feminine, but had all pauses between the words, as if a bubble of gas making a very small 'blub' sound was being released between each.

Without being able to see, all Midoriya could do was think. There was a lot of auditory tells that suggested… Did they all have heteromorphic quirks?

He considered that thought, rolled about it in his head and came up with a somewhat cringe-worthy: let's assume so. It was a stereotype in the vein of 'all Koreans living in Japan know each other', but given the current non-existent lighting and the odd sounds emanating from the people around him, it seemed fair to him to assume that they all had other ways of locating him which suggested the so-called 'animal-class quirks' instead of a dedicated 'sensory' quirk package.

That Gang Orca was himself in possession of an 'animal-class quirk' made it seem all the more likely though it really shouldn't have been.

"New k-k-kid's a thinker."

"Do you accept my challenge, intern? I promise to use the flat of my horn!"

Gang Orca had told him he could do 'whatever'.

"I-is this a test?" he asked, fists still up.

"Everything's, a, test."

All Might had told him to take on more experiences.

"Then, um, I accept!"

"Have at you then! En guarde!"

The blow came whistling through the darkness and slammed solidly into his middle with the force of a baseball bat. Without time to harden his muscles, it hit his flesh with a solid thwack and, oddly, stung instead of reducing him to a quivering, crying pile of jelly.

Midoriya's counter-blow whiffed, hitting only air.

"A tough guy, I see. Well, that makes this all the more exciting! Let us put our pride on the line!"

Staring out into the inky darkness, Midoriya could only say: "Sure?"

-----

Midoriya had quickly established that wherever he was, there were a lot of walls, placed at odd angles, as if a maze, except, uh, rounder and glass..ier. Without sight, all he could do was memorize the layout by stumbling blindly and counting his steps.

It worked, to an extent.

"I admire your courage!"

He skipped backwards, ears picking up the whistle as whatever it was that Ikkaku was using to attack him whished through the air. It wasn't his fist, Midoriya was ninety percent sure. You couldn't be sure, what with quirks and some people's 'fists' being literal spigots, but the angles and the impact seemed different.

It helped a lot that Ikkaku spoke while engaging in 'honorable combat'.

"Isn't this, um, dangerous?"

Quick steps, running towards him, the pitter-patter of footsteps almost like rain it came so quickly. He threw himself back, but not quite fast enough, the point of something sharp digging into his chest, but not hard enough to pierce skin.

"Do you concede?"

It was a bit unfair (okay, it was a lot unfair) but Midoriya grabbed the thing digging into his chest - it was surprisingly smooth, and felt more like plastic than wood or metal, but wasn't plastic either - and summoned just a bit of One for All.

"Do you?" he asked, squeezing his hand, feeling his fingers begin to dig divots into the weapon.

"Eh?" said Ikkaku. Then, as Midoriya reached forward, catching him by the collar and lifted him up: "Ehhh???"

"An au-au-augmentation-type quirk, huh?"

Something sailed through the darkness and splashed on the ground as Midoriya whipped his head to the side, avoiding whatever it had been. He couldn't see anything, but he was… he was getting used to this.

"Oooh, this, one's, like, Mirko."

"This honorable young man is nothing like that hoyden! And I demand that you stay out of our duel, Mr. Devilfish!" said Ikkaku hotly. Then, his grip loosing on his weapon so that Midoriya was suddenly left holding its full weight. "Actually, there is little point to continuing: I concede, young man – you have bested me!"

Mr. Devilfish groaned. "Wh-what about your pr-pride?"

"It is because I have pride that I have conceded! He is worthy of wearing the regalia of a Gang Orca sidekick. As Number Four, I so proclaim it!"

"Glub," said the woman. There was another splash and then the sound of someone moving, somewhere in the darkness, trailing water as they went. "This, little, guppy? Ridiculous."

"Y-you are going to h-h-help?" asked Mr. Devilfish. "You, Tekka Maki?"

"Don't, act, so, surprised, Number, Seven."

"You're o-o-only one rank higher than me!"

"Neither of you can continue this test, I have already declared it over!" said Ikkaku, sounding childishly petulant. Midoriya, having held him aloft throughout the entire exchange, gently put him down. "Ahem, thank you. Stand down, you two!"

A sibilant voice with odd clicking that it took Midoriya a moment to realize was chuckling issued out of the gloom. "Gishigishi. Then I declare it unfinished."

"D-D-Dholak?"

"Well, there, we, go, our, Third, said, it's, not, finished."

The sidekick in front of him bristled. "Then I shall defend our new intern! It is high time that I showed Dholak his place! In fact," there was click, and the lights suddenly began to turn on, one-by-one. "I think it's time we gave him back his eyes!"

Midoriya blinked, eyes adjusting to the sudden light, low as it was.

The first thing he noticed was that the hero in front of him 'Ikkaku' was holding what looked like a spear made of bone… whose jagged base matched the odd, broken-off looking protrusion where his nose should have been.

The second thing he noticed was that the floor he was on appeared to be part of an enormous aquarium. Small, rainbow colored fish swam and fled in their enclosures.

The third thing he noticed was that all present were indeed heteromorphic quirk users. There was a woman with hair of pink coral for hair, gills closing up along her neck, a man with a spider crab for a head whose long crab legs came out of his neck and appeared to end in wicked sharp claws. The third, whom he assumed was Devilfish, had the head of an octopus, and two human arms as well as the usual complement of tentacles exiting from where his mouth should have been, but was vanishing before his very eyes, skin fading into the background.

"He, was, supposed, to, figure, that, out on his own," complained the woman, with the last of her gills closing, her voice suddenly changed, becoming smoother and more human.

"I doubt you will be able to, but regardless, don't damage any of the tanks!" said Ikkaku, taking up his horn. "Dholak, I challenge thee to an honorable duel!"

"Don't 'thee' me in this day and age, Ikkaku," said the man with the crab head testily. "And I accept, of course."

Serious, the two of them sped at each other, Ikkaku suddenly much, much faster than he had been swinging at Midoriya in the dark.

Midoriya was interrupted from watching the spectacle by a sudden faceful of ink.

"Grk!"

"Your t-t-test isn't over! P-p-pay attention!"

A surprisingly slippery fist buried itself into his gut. Unlike Ikkaku's spear strikes it hurt. He doubled over, nearly expelling his breakfast. He tried to take a breath and couldn't.

Ow.

"Oi, M-Maki. G-go easy on him."

"Hey, kiddo. Still alive? I'm Tekka Maki! I can do whatever a tuna can do!" He could hear the smile full of teeth. "And what tuna can do is go fast."

------

Unlike Ikkaku, Tekka Maki was not holding back.

Back to a fish tank, his body hunched over, arms covering his middle and as much of his face as he could manage, it was all he could do to withstand her flurry of blows.

His eyes still stung from the ink, but at least he could see now.

"You ever learn the whole fma equation? Force is mass is acceleration?" Another punch thundered into his gut. "Don't got much mass, so I gotta make up for it through-" her first right hook blasted his guard apart, her left snapped his head back, "speed."

Speed and acceleration weren't the same thing, and the formula was mass times acceleration, but ow, his nose.

On the upside, Mr. Devilfish seemed to be unwilling to step in, lurking invisibly…. somewhere. So it was one on one, the power of eight incredible heroes compounded within him and magnified by his quirk against the power of a fish.

And the fish was winning, no contest.

"Willing to give up, yet, hey?"

No.

"No."

"Now, Rumi I could accept as one of us from the get-go, but who're you, huh?"

Blood was dripping down his nose. But this was interesting enough to suddenly break through his concentration. "Rumi - You mean Mirko the Rabbit Hero – I mean, of course you mean Mirko the Rabbit Hero. Did Mirko really intern here-"

Another punch made him eat his words. The second and third made him wheeze. "Enough fanboying, you're embarrassing yourself."

Midoriya wished to say he were holding back, but without being given room to breathe, trying to use One for All would have been a disaster.

When you punch, you must put your entire body into the punch.

Tekka Maki was fast enough that she could punch him, speed away, then punch him again before he could take more than a step. She wasn't supersonic fast like Edgeshot was said to be, but Midoriya was fairly certain she could hit racecar speeds if she wanted to.

Even with all the general improvements he'd made to his body, he wouldn't be able to touch her.

But he didn't have to chase her. She was coming to him.

He hardened his body against the next onslaught and then, as she was leaving, took a deep breath. He hadn't, up until this point, actually punched someone.

His timing would have to be perfect.

Step-in and-

Tentacles suddenly extended between the two of them, a body interposing itself between their respective attacks. With his body already in motion, there was no way to arrest his momentum.

Midoriya punched.

The three tentacles that had been placed in the way of his blow exploded, sheared off as if hit by a sledgehammer.

Before Midoriya could do more than gape at the hideous wound, he hadn't – he hadn't even used One for All, not even a little - Devilfish raised his remaining tentacles, fanning them out to capture the barreling Tekka Maki. Like a bullet she twirled within the tentacles – but then bounced backwards, caught.

Blue blood leaked sluggishly from the stumps of his injured tentacles.

"Okay, that's i-i-it you c-c-combat freaks. I'm c-c-calling a timeout."

-------

"Well, that was unexpected," Dholak said, in his click-clack voice, extra set of spider crab legs deftly examining the site of Devilfish's injury.

"Owch, stop p-p-poking it."

"It is an honorable wound, do not sully it with petty complaints!" Ikkaku said boisterously. Though his head resembled a black cylinder, something like a dark diglet from those old Pokemon games, Midoriya had learned his quirk was 'Narwhal' which explained the horn-slash-spear Ikkaku had been using. "Do not worry! Dholak is merely seeing to it that you recover swiftly, Devilfish!"

Midoriya hovered anxiously over the injured hero. He was no expert, his first aid training strictly what he'd picked up in his lifeguarding classes, but even to a layman, that was obviously a major injury.

"Is he really going to be okay?" he asked Ikkaku quietly.

"Happens all the t-t-time," Devilfish said, interrupting, remaining tentacles waggling. "In a pinch, I c-c-can even disconnect them myself. Hurts like a b-b-b-"

"Beast," Ikkaku quickly chimed in.

Now that he was looking, for such a major injury, the blood loss was surprisingly little.

"Thank goodness."

"Hey, don't worry kid," Tekka Maki said, slinging an arm around his shoulders. Suddenly, Midoriya realized that a woman had her arm around his shoulders. His body, independently of his mind, instantly turned into its best impression of a rock while his brain blinked helplessly and then went along with it. "That was a beaut of a punch. Woulda knocked my socks off if it had landed."

"Uh," said the rock.

"At the speed you were going? A counter of that force would have probably caved your skull in," Dholak said absently, selecting a roll of bandages from the first aid box he had out.

"Oi!" Tekka Maki let go and spun towards the spider crab; the rock breathed and became human again. "To go as fast as I do means you get tough enough to take a few to the noggin!" she hit her own head demonstratively.

"The punch was excessive for a spar," Ikakku said severely, which made Midoriya quail internally. "But Tekka escalated first. Why go to top gear against an intern? And not even a real intern, an intern's approval test?"

Tekka Maki grinned, tapping her nose. "I could smell he was a strong one. And I was right! Wowza! Punch like that has every right to be called a super move!"

"H-h-hey, I'd like that. Whatcha g-g-gonna call it?"

Caught off guard by the flow of the conversation, Midoriya answered without thinking.

"Probably Detroit…" as his brain caught up with his tongue, he thought that he'd better make his connection to All Might a little less conspicuous, "Um, Detroit Iron."

"Like All Might's Detroit Smash?"

So maybe anything to do with America made it pretty obvious as to its original inspiration.

"Yeah…"

"You do seem to have his type of enhancement quirk," Tekka Maki laughed and slapped his back. "With a name like that you gotta aim high, but, well, go for it! All quirks get stronger with training and those that build up the body get strong reeeeal quick."

"There is a plateau," Ikkaku put in. "But such limits are meant to be bested!"

"C-c-combat freaks the lot of – Ow! Careful!"

"You've had worse," Dholak said remorselessly, finishing the tourniquet. He clacked his hands and claws a few time, as if ridding them of dust. "Okay, kids, I'm backing Ikkaku, the new intern passes."

"As he should!"

"Well, duh."

"N-not contesting th-that."

There was a beat.

"So," said Tekka Maki. "Who's gonna tell the boss?"

-------

Gang Orca stared solemnly at Midoriya.

Midoriya squirmed beneath his gaze. At some point since he had last seen him the hero had somehow managed to get blood on one of his sleeves, making an intimidating hero look downright ghastly. He wasn't one to talk though. His formal suit was still splattered with Mr. Devilfish's now-crusty blue-black blood.

Off on the other side of the aquarium, Midoriya could just about make out the size and shape of Gang Orca's minions. They had been adamant that Midoriya be one to break the 'good news'.

"Well," said Gang Orca. Devilfish's severed tentacles were still on the ground, damning evidence of the mayhem that had taken place. "I did say you could do anything. I thought it well understood that maiming and murder-"

"I didn't-! I-" said Midoriya frantically.

And the story came spilling out. Gang Orca listened, nodding or asking for clarification, but mostly being a good listener.

At the end of it, he took a deep breath and roared: "NUMBERS!"

Every single one of his minions zipped back towards him, all seeming to be in possession of a tuna fish's speed.

"Yes, sir."

"B-b-b-boss."

"Boss!"

"Boss."

"Self-reflection. Go. Let's start from the top. Isana's back in town-" there was a straightening of backs and some shared frowns, "and my best and brightest are being not that."

Isana? Midoriya wondered. Where had he heard that name before…

Dholak - the hero with the spider crab head breathed out, foam appearing at his mandibles. "Sir! I got distracted from my role as chief supervisor. I should not have answered Ikkaku's challenge."

"And?"

"…I should have supported him when he said that the test was over."

"At least this debacle was not for nothing, then. Ikkaku?"

"When these ruffians-"

"No name calling, I'm not in the mood for antics."

Ikkaku nodded, broken horn bobbing up and down. "Apologies, sir. I should have de-escalated. That I was correct in actions does not mean I could not have been even more correct."

"I'll take it," Gang Orca said, turning to Tekka Maki. "And you. Explain."

The formidable young woman wilted, but then rallied. "I… I knew he was strong, I wanted to really push him, yanno?"

"I think," said Gang Orca, looming – and Midoriya realized just how imposing over a ton of whaleman bulk looked up close, "that you wanted to test yourself. You wanted to prove that you're ready to move on and go independent. Well, ya ain't. You're demoted, Tekka Maki. Devilfish – for all his faults – at least knew when too much was too much."

"Yes, sir," the tuna fish woman said.

Gang Orca took a deep breath and seemed to shrink back into his normally imposing figure instead of a nightmarish this is my angry face orca.

"Devilfish?" he asked, much more calmly.

"I probably should have intervened sooner, honestly. And not antagonized Ikkaku."

Gang Orca nodded.

"And you Midoriya? What should you have done?"

"Me?" asked Midoriya.

"Yes."

He gulped. "I – um, I – I think there were a lot of things I could have done." Which was not incorrect, but it wasn't an answer either. Furiously, he racked his brains for an answer.

'You gotta show em' who's boss,' Gang Orca had said and he had wanted to know...

Oh.

"I think, I think one of the most important was that I should have asked what we were doing and why. Instead, I just… went with the flow."

Gang Orca nodded.

"You're not wrong. Anything else to add?"

He had never been a of a zealously martial nature like Kacchan. Honestly, with hindsight, he could say:

"Maybe… I should have given up? It was, um, it was just a test."

"Yes," said Gang Orca. "Good. A soldier follows orders. Heroes have to do more than that. They have to think. They have to use their best judgement. You're a little too gifted kid. I told you no lightshow and you didn't even try to turn on the lights. Ikkaku challenges you to a duel in the dark and you accept. Our girl Maki tries to hit you and you let her. In the future, you can't be this passive. Villains act, heroes react, that's the stereotype and a mindset – and not a good one."

Midoriya nodded. "Yes."

"Tekka, your remedial training is to train our new intern."

"Babysitting?!"

"Think of it more as making up for your f-"

"Fudge!" said Ikkaku brightly.

"-up."

"Yes. Sir," said Tekka Maki through gritted teeth.

"Everyone else, with me," said Gang Orca. "Suit up. We have a whale to hunt."

-------

Author's Note: Yup, sidekicks are all from Horikoshi's prior work. For a second there, horror upon horrors, I nearly had to come up with some original characters.

 

[floppy_seal99]

all Koreans living in Japan know each other

Click to shrink...

After reading Min Jin Lee's Pachinko, I myself, a Korean-American, actually do believe this on some gut level which makes this line even funnier.

And on top of that, one of former performance artist Van Darkholme's Twitch streams contained a small rant about how he keeps getting asked if he knows other Vietnamese immigrants to the US even if they live in places he's never been to. So the joke connected with me on three levels.

Besides that, the chapter was great.

 

[Larekko12]

Izuku has fist of the daystar. You bum. You should have a laser with a stun setting and a kill setting that puts the energy of the suns core into the target and not further.

 

[Slayer Anderson]

A thought occurs.

Given that, from an in-universe perspective, Exaltations of a Solar nature are earned through disrupting your own fate through success when, by all rights you should have failed...

...I have to wonder exactly how Izuku's exaltation and Sir Nighteye's quirk are going to interact.

 

[Hyacinthium]

"This person's writing is the best combination of AO3 and SV styles."

That's what I told my friends when I linked them this story. They're really digging the 'beautiful, anxiously majestic dinosaurs' line. God, I missed your prose and general way of writing. AND GOD WAS EACH THING SATISFYING. You have a marvelous way of making each new event hit. The chase scene, the car crash, Izuku as a volunteer. His finally processing exactly what just happened, getting a quirk...lol.

Followed af.

 

[FixerUpper]

Two figures, one short, the other hunched over, sparred to the sound of the crashing surf and the light of the rising sun.

"That sounded like an eventful first day," All Might said neutrally.

Like an old boxing coach, the number one hero in the world had brought out mitts and was waving his hands in a pattern he'd told Midoriya to aim for. The constant paff-paff-paff of his fists against the cotton mitts was gratifying to hear.

Midoriya nodded, straining as he leaned in. "It was."

Just because he was an intern was no reason to stop training with All Might.

"What else did you learn?"

Midoriya tried a kick and found himself slamming into the sand as All Might handily sidestepped, grabbed it and – using ever-so-little-force – spun him off balance.

He shook a mitt. "No kicks until you know how to punch. Fundamentals, my boy, fundamentals."

"Yes, sir."

"So? What did you learn?"

"Um," his punches slowed and he was rewarded with a light tap on the head. He shook it and resumed his combination practice, one-two, one-two, one-two. Talk and punch, punch and talk. "After the test, Tekka Maki showed me around Gang Orca's HQ. I didn't realize that the support department for each hero was so massive."

"Oh, it varies from hero to hero," said All Might, casually blocking Midoriya's blows. "Gang Orca has quite the army of sidekicks and some signature equipment that requires regular maintenance. His support department must, by necessity, be correspondingly huge."

"It was." Even now, Midoriya boggled at it. In sheer space alone it was more like a gymnasium or a warehouse, far taller than necessary. "Is it why other heroes don't use things like concrete guns?"

"What you must understand, my boy," All Might grunted as Midoriya's fist came in just a shade faster than he had been expecting it, "-my goodness, but you improve quickly! - is that every hero in, say, the top twenty range, excels at something. No hero who has made it to where he has has done so by copying another – and no one that wishes to make it to those rarified heights will want to do so by copying him! It is a matter of style."

Midoriya briefly considered his own 'Detroit Iron' and winced.

"Support items are a necessity," he flexed, bulking up to his hero form, Midoriya suddenly found his punches weren't quite reaching their targets, the mitts becoming a blur, and had to compensate with a sudden burst of both speed and strength that left him with a sunny smile on his forehead, "much of even my civilian clothes are custom made by a good friend of mine, which allows me to go about my heroic activities without fear of a sudden wardrobe malfunction. Once you have unlocked over fifty percent of One for All I will introduce you to him lest you expose yourself to unwanted attention!"

All Might then shrank back down, going back to a calmer tempo.

"But I have seen too many good heroes limited by their reliance on support items and gadgets. I'd caution you against relying overmuch on technology that you did not make yourself!"

"So, if I made my own support item…"

All Might raised an eyebrow. "I did not know that you wished to do so!"

Midoriya paused, nervously scratching his head. He got doinked again with the mitt for his trouble and started up his left-right combinations again.

"I think that – I think that everyone who wants to be a hero has, um, drawn their costume somewhere."

All Might's eyes hovered left for a moment before his face broke out into a smile. "You may be right about that! And there is the costume subsidy to think about."

Midoriya tilted his head. "Costume subsidy?"

All Might nodded. "Your footwork's getting sloppy, remember, stay tight, guard your head! but yes – those that make it into UA will be approved for a custom-made costume of their own design!"

There were stars in Midoriya's eyes that grew as All Might spoke, but somehow his footwork got back on track. "Like, a professionally-made…?"

"Oh yes, of course!" All Might slowly began to vary the speed of his mitts, and watched as Midoriya unconsciously matched his erratic tempo. "You must realize, my boy, that no one knows your quirk better than yourself! Just as your body and your quirk will reach new heights, so will you gain the practical experience necessary to know if your costume needs alterations and what those alterations should be!"

"So, um, a costume powered by the light given off by my quirk? Though I guess battery limitations and the output of the light have to be taken into consideration, perhaps it would not be very practical for-"

"Of course!" said All Might. "And if it is not practical, so be it! At least you will know!"

"What about armor?"

"A cool look! Though honestly, once you have mastered One for All you will realize that your body is much too strong for even the strongest manmade armor."

"Then, um, uh, spy drones? Or like a machine that makes fog-"

All Might made an X with his forearms. Midoriya started punching across to hit the mitts. "The subsidy will not cover maintenance or replacement parts! Unless delivered defective, there will be no takebacks! It is why most basic designs prioritize durability over additional functionality."

"What about a…"

Something roared, a long, impossibly deep sound, so huge it seemed like it had to be something natural, an earthquake, or an avalanche, making goosebumps break out across Midoriya's back. Both his and All Might's heads swiveled to track it: something was breaking through the water, stories high, and if he focused really intensely he could kind of see a giant green monster, probably the result of a transformation quirk, rise out of the water.

By the time Midoriya had turned back to All Might, the mitts had been tossed into his hands and the true All Might was standing before him, flush with power.

"I'm afraid duty calls, young Midoriya! There were a few reports about a 'sea monster' these past few days – I see for once reports on its size were not exaggerated!"

It would have been extremely arrogant and supremely selfish for him to ask All Might to take him along so Midoriya smiled and said: "Good luck!"

But All Might was already gone, nothing left of him save a passing breeze, distant laughter and his silhouette running across the waves.

Midoriya's jaw still dropped open when the sea monster, probably as tall as a twenty-story building, fell over to a single punch.

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

"So, um, Gang Orca said I would have duties?" asked Midoriya hopefully from the doorway to a room reading 'RECORDS'.

After his morning training session with All Might he'd gone directly to Gang Orca's HQ. It'd taken him half an hour to locate his 'internship mentor' – first she was supposed to be at the reception area on the first floor, then the aquarium had been suggested when she wasn't there, and now finally, he'd located her in the records office, knee-deep in boxes and old papers, a pen spinning idly across her knuckles, spectacles that hadn't been there yesterday on the bridge of her nose and shadows beneath her eyes.

Raising her head, coral hair fanned out behind her, she looked at Midoriya blearily.

"Buh wuh?" she asked.

"Are you, um, okay?" asked Midoriya.

Instead of answering, she rubbed her eyes, yawned and asked: "What time is it?"

"Um. Eight-oh-two?"

"Shit. Ah, crap. My bad, language." She aborted a yawn, stretching her arms up. "Duty, duty, duty… uh, first things first, get me some coffee. There's a little machine down in the break room."

"Ok?"

"Thanks kid, I know it's naaAWWW," this time she covered her mouth, "-t what you signed up for."

"Are you, um, okay?"

Tekka rubbed her eyes again. "The boss said you were here to gain experience, right?"

"Yes!"

"Here's lesson one: when a sleep-deprived superior asks for coffee, you go get them some goddamn coffee."

Midoriya ran to get some goddamn coffee.

He made it. It was his fist time making coffee so he looked up instructions on the internet on his phone and gave a small prayer to whatever gods were listening.

Then he ran back with the coffee.

Tekka Maki took a sip, widened her eyes, then, heedless of the scorching temperatures, inhaled it.

"Damn, but you make good coffee," said Tekka Maki, looking substantially more peppy. "Feel like a million bucks even without the sea water. Thanks, intern."

"You're, er, welcome?"

"So, uh, duties, duties, duties." She peered at him looking like she was deliberating something difficult. Papers rustled as she tapped a folder. "These records are all confidential so I'm kiiiinda not supposed to let you read any of them."

Midoriya was a responsible young man, but even so, he was still a teenager. The lure of the forbidden was such flagrant bait even he could tell it was being used as such, and yet he still pressed in.

"But?" he asked.

"The Boss asked me to go through the old boss' records. We're looking for any references to a character named Isana."

"Do you need me to help?"

"Please."

Midoriya picked up a file folder. "So, who's Isana?"

There was a sigh. "Well, that's the thing. He's the old boss."

----------

At first, time passed slowly, the majority of reports nothing more than a dry account of routine patrols, copies of permits applications, ancient invoices, and oddly written requests for pizza +++ extra sardines!!!

But then he started to get into it, one file folder leading to another, leading to another, each telling the story of a day or a month, but together filled out a gap that spanned nearly a decade.

So, the story that Midoriya pieced together was this.

Before Gang Orca, there had been the Curator, a man with a transformation quirk that turned him into a sperm whale. Not a whale-man, like Gang Orca, but an actual whale, over twenty meters long and fifty tons in weight, the kind of whale that was supposed to have swallowed Gepetto. Of the active heroes, only Mount Lady could rival him in sheer size and he outmuscled and outweighed her substantially. Add to the fact that his quirk was more versatile – being capable of being expressed partially instead of an either/or, and he was a formidable hero.

He'd formed a hero agency and, quite naturally, sidekicks with quirks similar to his had begun showing up.

A hero with a narwhal quirk, a different hero with a spider crab quirk, a man with a great white shark quirk…

His spidery writing was neat and the reports filled out diligently, but there was something about the man that bothered Midoriya that he couldn't quite put his finger on until he reached for a file folder and five pictures fell to the ground.

His breath hitched as he picked them up.

He flipped over the file open and began reading feverishly. As he got to the last page, his fist hit the ground, making the room seem to jump.

"He killed his own sidekick?!"

"You're reading speed is bullshit, kiddo," said Tekka Maki, who was chewing on, of all things, dried fish. At some point, the sidekick had stopped going through the files, content to merely watch the new intern blaze through them, paper flicking past him almost as fast as he could run his fingers down the page, every now and then sparks of light seeping through his skin. What were they teaching in school these days?

"But yeah. He went villain on us."

"Why?" asked Midoriya.

"Dunno. It was a long shot, but the boss was hoping I could glean something here. He's been over the records a thousand times himself."

"How come – how come this wasn't more widely publicized?"

"Welcome to the world of adults, kiddo. It shoulda been, I agree, but the hero system is… kinda precarious. There's a lot that happens outside of the light. That a hero is an attention whore is kind of one thing – maybe even a good thing. That a hero turns into a murderer is… kind of another. It'd been a bad year, people didn't want the public losing trust in heroes or some shit."

"That's not right."

"Yeah, but whatcha going to do?" she asked rhetorically. "If we could catch him, that'd be one thing, but he vanished. The powers that be wanted it hushed up, so it got hushed up. He disappeared about five years ago. Then, he was spotted, earlier this week, traveling with a new crew. The boss wants him bad, but just saying 'make it happen' ain't going to do much."

Midoriya picked up one of the pictures, of the shark man with his teeth broken and body mangled. His hand shook before stilling'. This was the world of the pros.

"What can I do to help?" Midoriya asked, looking up.

Tekka Maki raised her eyebrows, looked him up and down, then held out her mug. "Get me some more coffee?"

----------

"Goddamn, but you make really good coffee!"

This was the scene to which Gang Orca opened the door. His newest intern being noogied by his number one troublemaker of a sidekick, coffee sloshing in her coffee cup, the records all over the office.

Oh, and there was string everywhere, linking pictures and files with red and black yarn, like this was all a bad police procedural.

"Maki, a word," he said.

"Boss!" she said, sobering up, but clearly unrepentant. She had a manic sort of energy which he hadn't expected to see out of someone who had clearly spent an all-nighter here. "The intern has a theory."

"And I'll hear it," he repeated. "After we talk."

"No, no, ya gotta hear it," she let go of her noogie victim. "Internku, go for it."

Midoriya ducked his head, then, mumbled a few words, eyes zipping around the room as if seeing the transformation that had been wrought to the records room for the first time, but, then, taking a deep breath, straightening his back and looking very serious, the boy said: "Gang Orca, sir! Um, to summarize, I think that Isana became a member of the CRC, that is to say, a member of the fanatical organization that seeks to eliminate heteromorphic quirks due to their belief that such quirks represent too strong a deviation from humanity to be considered human, um, seven years ago and ascended to the position of marshal after murdering King Seaking, aka-"

"That's a great theory," he said warmly, interrupting. Isana was in town and Tekka Maki was relying on an intern to do actual analysis. This was what came from having mostly meatheads on the payroll. "Maki. A word."

She flushed. "Ah, yeah, of course. Kid, don't move."

The kid didn't move. Tekka Maki zipped to the door and stepped outside.

Gang Orca closed it.

Then he rounded up on her, looming above.

"What are you –" he peered into her eyes, "Maki, are you high?"

"What?" she asked. Then she shook her head, coral curls floating unevenly about her. "Uh, no. Look, boss, I know you're still looking at him like a kid, but you gotta twist yourself outta those - prejudices. Internku's a legit genius."

"Maki, did you even read his files?! He just graduated from middle school."

She blinked. Then she blinked some more. "Oh dannnng. And here I thought he was just a shorty. He… probably shouldn't be allowed to look in there, then."

"Yes."

"And if he gets traumatized by some of the gnarlier pictures, well, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen."

"Maki," he growled.

She grabbed his arm. "No, I getcha, Boss. I'm not a complete brick-for-brains. But, listen. I want to catch that bastard as badly as you do. The kid's already looked at the files. Whatcha got to lose at this point, listening to him?"

Gang Orca sighed. "Maki, you can't keep doing this."

She shrugged her shoulders. "You going to listen or what?"

He shook his head. "Maki..."

"Love ya too, boss!"

Gang Orca opened the door. For some reason, Midoriya hadn't budged an inch from where he'd last seen him.

"Let me hear your theory, then. Start from the beginning."

----------

"It appears to make a weird amount of sense," said Kaizou, his baritone voice seeming muffled by the enormous whiskers sprouting out the sides of his face, an eyepiece staring intently at a report.

Towering above Midoriya, and standing taller and bulkier than even the massive Gang Orca, Kaizou was by far the oldest hero that Midoriya had seen and still active as a sidekick. With a Walrus quirk, he had two enormous tusks and ample blubber to act as protection and, more relevantly, probably did not see much time in the field.

He was also really, really big, and even with his back bowed, his head still brushed the ceiling.

This was Gang Orca's Number Two.

"You're kidding," said Dholak.

"Why are we all c-c-c-crammed into the records room?" asked Devilfish sourly only to be immediately ignored.

Midoriya did think he had a point though. It had been a little cramped before, with most of the single-digit Numbers present it was downright claustrophobic.

"I wish I were," said Kaizou ponderously. "But, as the young man points out, the signs are there. Him having become a Rejectionist is no less implausible a theory than any others that have surfaced. More plausible, rather."

"Allow me to voice an unfortunate truth," said Ikkaku. "I daresay that presenting this evidence to the police will be met with some bemusement. Isana slightly changes his diction and from that we can assume he was a member of the CRC? I find myself skeptical and I do actually believe Midoriya to be right!"

"It's –" Midoriya tried to think of an example, "he wrote so many reports, but, I think that he was…" he thought of Bakugou, trying to crush him, his rage alternating with days of nothing, "distancing himself. He started classifying criminals by the class of their quirks, started referring to sidekicks by number and not by name-"

"Except for Aoi," said Tekka, "and all she had was that dumb cleaning quirk. It was right in front of us when you think about it."

"If it was right in front of us this entire t-t-ime, how come didn't we notice it?" asked Devilfish.

"Because we knew him," said Gang Orca softly. It was the first time he'd spoken in nearly half an hour and everyone turned to him. "He was our leader and mentor. Our intern had… fresh eyes and distance."

"I just thought he hated everyone equally," said Dholak blithely. "And all this is great, but, and I stress this, now what?"

A moment of silence.

Then, Gang Orca said: "We could simply challenge them. Not him, but the CRC-"

"Kugo, no," said Kaizou.

The hero and his sidekick exchanged glances. Kaizou looked to Gang Orca who looked back to Kaizou. There was a moment of silent communication that Midoriya thought he might have just been on the cusp of deciphering when Kaizou raised his hands in defeat.

"Like old times," the giant sidekick grumbled.

"For those of us who aren't ten-year veterans and practically geriatric, what old times?" asked Tekka Maki.

"The CRC is an old foe," said Gang Orca.

"Oi, don't pretend you're old enough to have known them in their heyday," said Kaizou.

"Old enough."

"Boy, don't talk to me about-"

Being the only one without a heteromorphic quirk in the room, Midoriya felt distinctly uncomfortable. He must have made a noise or emanated some sort of nervous signal because the heroes and sidekicks in the room seemed to suddenly remember he was there.

"Thank you, Midoriya," said Gang Orca. "We will handle it from here."

"Right," said Midoriya who might not have been the most socially adept, but was socially adept enough to know a dismissal when he heard one. "Um. Thanks for letting me help?"

Kaizou held the door open and he scampered out.

--------

"It appears there's quite an operation underway," said Mr. Igarashi neutrally, buffing the external housing of a concrete gun. It gave off a faint sparkle and he nodded, satisfied. "They usually have someone else look after the interns."

Having been born with a sealion quirk, Mr. Igarashi's quirk was more extreme than most: he barely had fingers, his hands being more like long, dexterous claws, and no legs to speak of. Instead, he moved about in a modified electric wheelchair that could also displace itself vertically, allowing him to reach things that he normally could not, his body, in height, being less than four feet tall even if his body stretched over two meters.

He was also had that sort of prim and proper way of speaking that let you know he was a very fussy individual.

"Sorry," said Midoriya.

"I accept your apology. First, everything I do is art. I don't want you moving anything I don't ask you to move, or touching anything – what did I just say?"

Midoriya, who hadn't moved, repeated, alarmed: "Don't move or touch anything?"

Igarashi nodded. "Good. Now, are you the sort that knows the difference between a pipe wrench and a socket wrench, or the sort that knows the difference between red and gray?"

Was that a trick question?

"Um, I know the difference between red and gray?"

Mr. Igarashi waddled off, before pushing forward a big cabinet. He clapped twice and it hissed open, drawers unfolding one by one with a clank-clank-clung. Tools of a bewildering multitude popped out from each drawer.

"I got a serv- an employee to color code them once. My eyes are only bichromatic, so there's only so much I can do if they were labeled wrong. You are to hand me the tool I ask for and only the tool I ask for, do you understand?"

"Yes?"

"Green, yellow, orange bands, hup, hup."

By the time Gang Orca and his sidekicks had returned, apparently having made some progress, if not quite the sort that would have them on frontpage news, Mr. Igarashi refused to let him go.

"He is wasted as a mere intern, wasted."

Tekka Maki stood there, radiating smugness.

Gang Orca shrugged. His suit, worrisomely, was ripped and torn in several places: there was a gash above his knee. There was a look in his eye that… wasn't the same look that Gang Orca had had when Midoriya had first met him in that hospital.

"It is your call."

Midoriya tapped his fingers together. He had to admit, helping Igarshi had felt… natural in a way few things had. It had been like picking up an old book, so old, he'd practically forgotten it, but then going, 'oh yeah, I remember this part I love this part.'

Still, he wasn't trying to get into the support department.

"Can I help Mr. Igarashi when Tekka Maki is too busy to train me?"

Tekka Maki shrugged. "Sure."

"Delightful!" said Mr. Igarashi. "Tekka Maki is a very busy and responsible young woman, I am sure she will have very little time to spend with you."

---------

If only.

He had thought All Might a harsh taskmaster, but if there was one aspect that All Might excelled at it was gauging his pupil's strength.

Tekka Maki always went just a hair overboard.

"You get better disgustingly quick," she informed him, shaking her head, coral-stranded-hair moving oddly and seemingly independently of her body, or swaying in an invisible current within an absent ocean.

Back to the mat, his arm in a very painful armlock, Midoriya disagreed.

He just couldn't say it because ow, ow, ow, ow, OW.

Of course, he could use One for All, or push her off with his quirk, but then there wouldn't be a point to training.

Using his free hand, he tapped out.

She let go and he could breathe again.

"I'm not that-"

"Save the humility," she said, tossing him a bottle of water. He caught it, started drinking greedily. "Part of being a pro is being confident. You're strong. You're smart. Your quirk ain't even half-bad. Act like it."

He wasn't a pro though.

"Right. So. Um," and this was what he was actually interested in, hard not to be invested in an ongoing hero operation that he, even if it had only been slightly, contributed to, "How's the search for Isana going?"

She smiled. "Rolling up CRC joints is basically Christmas. Even if we don't find Isana, I can't complain. But. Thing is, all of us can see it. The way the local cells are set up, the way they work hierarchically – it's got that bastard's fingerprints all over it. We're going to get him, kid."

Inside, Midoriya felt a glow of satisfaction that was just a little bit proud of himself. It was interrupted by Tekka Maki slapping him on the back.

"Now, back to the mat, groundwork's important. You got a quirk that'll let you wrestle even on concrete, you gotta take advantage of that."

---------

His pencil was a blur on the page.

On his desktop, Youtube videos of The Curator were playing, playlist disgorging one video after another.

"-sonar can stun, and his overwhelming bulk protects the people! But after a hard day's work, when he's thirsty, the Curator drinks-"

This one was of a commercial.

The sketch he was doing, however, was of All Might.

Below it was one of Tekka Maki not that that was important in any way whatsoever.

The problem with All Might's stance, Midoriya was beginning to realize – the whole fists up thing, one at eye height, the other slightly extended in front of your face, was that fists were not very effective guards.

Well, his fists were not very effective guards.

Midoriya sketched All Might – in his muscle form, the man had arms the size of most people's torsos, those could be effective guards: little point to adding gloves to limbs as large as those! But still, there was a reason most martial arts had the palms open– easier to ward off blows with your hands opened than closed.

He put his pencil to his mouth, heedless of the lead smeared across his knuckles, before starting to sketch again.

What if he went low to begin with? Lower meant a lower center of gravity and meant he'd be harder to knock off balance, but there was a trade-off in that-

Well, actually, he wasn't sure.

He got up, tried it. Legs bent, one arm in front of the other…

After about a minute in horse stance he'd figured out just why All Might hadn't bothered showing it to him: the trade-offs in reach, speed and mobility really weren't worth it, not to a hero to whom speed was of the essence.

So what if he just lowered his stance as if he were doing a lunge and if they rushed at him, he'd punch downwards…

The door to his room opened.

His mom stared at him, carrying a tray of snacks.

In the resulting silence, The Curator's answer to a reporter's question – had he applied excessive force in dealing with the newly minted Octopus Protection Association? was surprisingly loud.

He stared at his mom, fist still extended, feeling a blush somehow both creep up his back down his head.

"I'll just leave this here," she said brightly, putting the tray of carrot and celery sticks on his desk as he trembled in one spot. "Good luck, Izuku!"

He could hear her stifled chuckles as she went back downstairs.

Midoriya took a deep breath.

Clear his mind, clear his mind, clear his mind…

Okay, back to the drawing board. Or notebook, rather.

Assuming an opponent came at it him low and fast, and was willing to take a punch or two, his options were to meet them head on, move back, or simply…

Learn how to wrestle.

Oof.

It wasn't that he was bad at it, actually, he was pretty good for someone who was doing it for the first time, wrestling had a logic to it, there were only so many options and the goal was to anticipate and eliminate the opposition's good options while keeping your own, but wrestling Tekka Maki was, um, it was still wrestling a girl (no, a woman) and no matter how much he tried to forget that, the fact was that, um, um-

His face turned crimson as he imagined her laughter. Then it turned even more crimson as he imagined-

Oh god, he wasn't a bad person, he wasn't a bad person, he wasn't, it was just, she was so close and-

He breathed in and out. Calm down.

He was a teenager. This was normal. (Probably)

Ugh. There had to be a way to counter a wrestler without wrestling even if they were faster, stronger and more skilled than you were he just had to focus and think of it.

-----

"Now you're just copying what you saw in old kung fu movies," said All Might dryly.

While bamboo poles were surprisingly easy to procure, thrusting them into the ground and using them as makeshift platforms was the exact opposite of that. He'd splintered more than a dozen before figuring out the trick to it, which wasn't so much a trick as just tying three together and trying it again.

He'd placed each of them about half a meter apart and occupied about as much space as a tennis court.

Jumping up onto one was… not as easy as he'd thought it'd be.

He could, they were only six feet tall or so, and at this point he could jump well over that, but big ol' boots didn't work very well with the teeny-tiny surface area of a bamboo pole. Balanced precariously on top of one, Midoriya hopped onto another, arms wobbling for a moment before taking a deep breath.

"I think that if others are going to go low, I'm going to go high."

He hopped onto another.

Okay, now just go a little faster-

Half of a whirly, twirly, tumbly second later, he was staring up at the sun. On the plus side, the bamboo poles behind him had broken his fall.

On the minus side, so had his face at some point. Ow.

"It's not a bad idea at all, young Midoriya, but how about we start with a slightly easier exercise, hm?" said All Might, hiding a chuckle behind his fist. Taking one of the bamboo poles and using it as a giant paintbrush, he began to draw circles into the sand, about the size of a dinnerplate.

"Step from one circle to the next without erasing either, fast as you can."

"Um, ok- oh," said Midoriya, who had gotten up, brushed himself off, taken one hopping step to the left and immediately erased the mark, his foot skidding until it had covered half the circle, and sent a spray of sand to the one next to it.

All Might grinned. "Not as easy as you thought, is it? Combat is all about positioning. Getting into place faster than the opposition, moving-" he demonstrated, feet hitting each circle without denting the edges, his fist suddenly in front of Midoriya's face, "better than your opposition."

He put his arm away. "There's a great deal of technical skill in just knowing how to put your foot down exactly where you want to put your foot down. The better you are able to control One for All, the more important it will become. You will have to use your toes to move and not just your feet!"

"But worry not!" he cracked his neck, and inflated, turning into his buff form. The wattage of his smile could have powered a small rural community. "For now, why not play a game of tag with little old me?"

---------

It was hard to breathe in the mask.

Well, not really hard, just uncomfortable. Also, mental note: purchase talcum powder for the chafing.

"Gang Orca specializes in reconnaissance," said Mr. Igarashi, only a little pompously. "That is why his sidekick trials take place in the dark! What he has always requested, and what I have always failed to deliver, is a mask that replicates the sonar that comes naturally to him."

"Mmmhm?" said Midoriya who wasn't sure why Mr. Igarashi was explaining something that he'd helped him build.

"It is a matter of space and also the fact that any module that creates a vibration of that magnitude will probably make the one wearing it quite ill! Which, while amusing, is not very practical. So, I had a thought. What if, instead of a sonar, the mask itself merely enhanced hearing? Blind humans being able to use a somewhat reduced form of echolocation is quite common in the literature, you see. Now, Midoriya, I need you to be my proof of concept. The solution is not technological or quirkful, but rather mundane training! Brilliant, is it not?"

There was a ker-shunk and his eyeholes all shuttered themselves and he was left in perfect darkness.

"Now, try moving about."

Midoriya moved… and did not immediately fall over.

"Outstanding!" said Igarashi, ever the optimist. "I will begin increasing your -"

At first, Midoriya thought that the sudden, deafening roar of sound was a mechanical error, Mr. Igarashi or himself having miscalibrated the output of the audio enhancer – but then, he felt buffeted by dust and damp air and something, far too large to be a simple tool falling off the bench, crashing next to him, causing the ground to quake, rattling him to his teeth.

Slowly, he pulled off the mask.

Like many heroes, Gang Orca's headquarters were semi-open to the public. The aquarium on the fifth basement level generated revenue, as did the gift shops and museum.

R&D was on the sixth and lowest level, the ceiling tall enough to accommodate a floor or three.

There was a hole in the ceiling. Even as he watched, water poured down and chunks the size of a sofa fell from the hole and smashed into the ground, not fifteen feet away. Dust, almost like fog it was so thick, hazed the air.

Had there been an accident?

He put the mask back on – it had an air filtration feature – and hit the control point beneath the lens that opened them back up.

Then he saw Mr. Igarashi, collapsed beneath a chunk of debris, his body covered in dust mingling with water, quickly turning to grime, pieces of his electric wheelchair collapsed about him, his glasses broken and blood pooling from a nasty looking cut to the side of his face. He'd been hit in the head-

"Mr. Igarashi!"

A voice, out of the swirling dust and pouring water spoke and said: "Give that animal to me."

A lot was made clear with just those five words.

"N-no!"

"As you prefer."

The dust moved, pushed aside by something huge, a mottled, blue-black color – Midoriya just managed to get his arms up in a guard before he was hit by something the size of a bus.

One moment it wasn't there, the next he was flung twenty feet, so hard and so fast that the wall he hit cratered from the impact, solid concrete spiderwebbing like sugarpane. Breath exploded out of him and his bones broke, more than one, the sound like little firecrackers, but inside of him.

Isana took a step out of the murk, his face hidden by an odd, bone white half-gasmask or maybe half diving-mask, its one glass eye glowing a spectral blue, the other half of his face exposed, human.

"You always were a bunch of animals," he said dismissively.

Midoriya wobbled. The lenses in his mask were cracked, broken. A moment later it broke in half, falling off his face like a bullet sliced in two. Blood poured down the side of his face, obscuring the vision in one eye.

He coughed and blood came out.

Broken bones, deep tissue damage, internal bleeding, prognosis: not great.

He took a breath – it was as if it were the first breath he had ever taken, something that could encompass the world and swallow it whole. The dust around him begin to shift, bits of dust and debris swirling around him in an invisible wind. Then, light surrounded him, as if the very air had come to life, impossible to ignore and, beneath its purifying gaze, the dust fled, banished. Blood dried and flaked away, revealing pinking wounds – not healed, not yet, but closed and, for now, close enough.

The first step he took was under his own power, as was the second, bits of concrete clattering to the ground in his wake.

Veins of pink light stood out from beneath his skin.

"I said no."

----------

Author's Note: Given the ending, I kind of wanted to pull a double update, but the odds are looking a bit slim, sorry. ^_^;

 

[Thriceboiled]

It's not really MHA unless Midoriya breaks his bones.

 

[ADeshantis]

Below it was one of Tekka Maki not that that was important in any way whatsoever

Click to shrink...

Oh boy is he-

His face turned crimson as he imagined her laughter. Then it turned even more crimson as he imagined-

Click to shrink...

Yep. He is. Poor Izu, he's gonna develop a complex and/or a fetish.

It's not really MHA unless Midoriya breaks his bones.

Click to shrink...

OK, but, to be fair, at least someone else broke them this time.

 

[kedgisgo]

oooh, violence time
I think he's going to go for a Detroit Smash! but the word that come from his mouth will be Heaven Thunder Hammer!

 

[ADeshantis]

oooh, violence time
I think he's going to go for a Detroit Smash! but the word that come from his mouth will be Heaven Thunder Hammer!

Click to shrink...

See, that one has always torn me. On the one hand, Exalted don't necessarily name or even notice Charms in character.

On the other hand, Heaven Thunder Hammer is fucking awesome and deserves to be shouted at the top of your lungs.

 

[Teiwaz]

Damn it Zuku take the old man and run.

 

[Somebodynobody10]

Damn it Zuku take the old man and run.

Click to shrink...

Izuku is a Solar. If he actually started to use his Essence (that was the name, right?) and began to use the perfect attacks and - defense, this villain would already be on the ground.

Shame he is an intelligent moron.

 

[Larekko12]

Izuku is a Solar. If he actually started to use his Essence (that was the name, right?) and began to use the perfect attacks and - defense, this villain would already be on the ground.

Shame he is an intelligent moron.

Click to shrink...

Izuku is a twilight who had the misfortune to be trained by a Dawn and is trying to Crane style and MA doesnt seem favored.

He was so close to making the smart decision. I hate how Japan has retarded Gadgeteer Heroes. The hero department was a mistake. Izuku could do the work of ten heroes with Hero department skills.