Project Gamer: Anime Adjacent

[Mister Ficser]

Project: Gamer Ver. Anime Adjacent: Boku No Hero

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

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Yagi Toshinori had grown accustomed to a variety of things throughout his career as a professional hero.

The distance his career had created between him and the everyman, the adulation of fans that followed his every public step, how some people shouted in joy just at seeing him. Then there was the fear in the eyes of villains, people that had given up on the pretext of polite society and used their in-born gifts to harm others and take more than they'd earned.

He'd grown used to the pain wracking his body, the dwindling strength of his inherited gift. The disappointment when, almost without fail, he would reach out to the villains that he could see were simply desperate, struggling people and they would lash out in fear. Justifying their actions to themselves.

Some things, though... Some things he'd never grown numb to.

The broken body of the young man that he'd spoken to on the roof just minutes ago, having beaten his own descent in a rather obvious manner? That wasn't something Yagi had ever been able to just coldly ignore.

Especially as, unlike the other times he'd seen it, those hadn't been his fault.

The boy (Midoriya, his mind supplied) had to have jumped from the roof. His shoes were missing and there really wasn't a simpler explanation for how he'd reached the ground ahead of Yagi.

The man simply stood there, numbly staring at the body as people around him milled about in a panicked herd and kept a clear distance from the corpse.

The green haired child, almost certainly no older than a middle-schooler... Did not look peaceful in his passing. His limbs were not twisted, no, but Yagi's keen eyes could tell that they were shattered. His eyes, staring blankly in his burst and bloodied skull, were looking directly at the hero. Accusing him. Blaming him.

"...Shit!" Until the body twitched, spasmed and jerked as broken bones and ruined muscle tried to move. "Son of a- God frickin' hell!"

"...What?" Yagi numbly asked as the body, clearly not alive, began to speak. In English.

"Great, just great! I told Terra that I'd be useless if I got thrown in like this! What even happened, did I get stuck filling in after Truck-Kun isekai'd someone? Screw it." The body continued to complain as it tried to move. Around it, the people that had been looking on in horror and fear were still idling, though some were recording on their phones. "System? Menu? Inventory? Great, nothing. I can still feel my magic though, so that's a plus. And a one, and a two, and-"

There was a series of loud cracks and clicks as the body began to put itself back together. Broken limbs were made whole, ruined organs repaired in seconds. It was, in Yagi's unfortunately expert opinion, perhaps the single fastest healing quirk he'd ever heard of.

Something Midoriya had claimed not to have.

And the curious, foreign yellow eyes looking out from the boy's face, Midoriya was not the one inhabiting that body.

Hearing more explosions in the distance, the ailing pro-hero was forced to make a choice. He could leave Midoriya here, inhabited by the strange American. Or he could go and see to the explosions back in the direction he'd once come from.

Or?

He grabbed the boy as he was inspecting his hands and hauled him to his feet, dragging him behind Yagi as he rushed towards the shouting.

"Yeah, hi? Who are you? For that matter, where am I?" Midoriya's body kept speaking as he stumbled along, barely keeping up as they moved. "Is this Japan? Pretty sure it's Japan. Pepsiman was right, the number of ads per minute here is insane... Wait, wow. I am so dumb!"

The kid snapped his fingers and Yagi barely had the chance to look back and see what he was doing. Which was basically just running as he tried to keep up with Yagi's giant gait.

"Is this better?" The kid asked.

In perfect Japanese.

"Yes." Yagi answered as they pushed to the front through a crowd of bystanders. "It is."

Finally, after far too long it felt like, they saw the commotion. A giant mass of black sludge was holding a young man hostage within itself. The mass grinned, its giant eyes glinting with wicked amusement as it was surrounded by flames.

Yagi's hand went to his wound, the one sapping the strength from his bones. The hole torn into him that stole the very breath from his lungs. His electric blue eyes searched the front of the crowd, easily marking the heroes that stood around the villain.

The hopelessness, the panic in their faces... The grim acceptance that whatever help may come, may not be enough.

"...Disgusting." The thing inside of Midoriya whispered as the boy's body stepped forward, ripping itself free of Yagi's hand.

"Stop!" Yagi shouted at him, reaching out to try and grab at him again. "Wait! Let the-"

The hero felt his fingertips brush against the boy's bloodstained uniform but he was just a hair out of reach, a half step too far away. The kid started moving at a job, stumbling once or twice on unfamiliar limbs before he got used to himself.

Then he was running.

Then he was sprinting.

"Kid!" One of the heroes shouted as Midoriya's body darted past him. "Stop! You can't-"

No, Yagi was forced to disagree with the hero. The hard resolve that he saw in those yellow eyes, the naked hatred as he'd looked at the Villain that was strangling its hostage.

Whatever was inside of Midoriya could. And it did.

The boy pulled a pencil out of one pocket and leapt as he got close to the laughing slime creature. The thing was eager, ecstatic to have another hostage to barter with.

Right up until Midoriya buried his pencil in one of the few solid parts of the ooze villain. It was embedded, lodged a solid ten centimeters deep in the villain's upper gums.

The villain screamed.

"Kid!" One of the heroes, the man wearing a work hazard sign on his head, began shouting as he pushed through the flames behind him. "Kid! It's not safe! You need to- Woah!"

Woah indeed. The mass was undulating, warping and twisting as it tried to dislodge the body of young Midoriya. The boy, however, was latched on to the creature, holding on to the pencil he'd anchored himself with as he used another instrument of literary destruction to stab at the creature's other hard points.

In short? The villain was being stabbed in the eyes with a pen whilst the boy stabbing it was holding on to a pencil that had been stabbed into its teeth.

The ooze man did not bleed, Yagi noticed. Each perforation, each wound inflicted upon it gushed and gushed with black murk, each injury eliciting a fresh scream of fury and pain.

It wasn't enough to stop the villain.

It was enough to give his victim a chance to get a full breath of air, however.

The spiky blond boy trapped within the beast was yelling at Midoriya's body. Yagi could just make out something like 'Deku' before the villain had finally decided it had enough. It ballooned out, trading mass for volume and shoved its assailant away with its bulk where before its efforts to remove him with raw force had failed.

The kid's body flew back, slamming into a street lamp and falling limp- No, that, honestly, was what Toshinori Yagi would have preferred. The thing inside of Midoriya put both hands on the ground and, even from within the middle of a crowd and a hundred meters away?

It wasn't going to give up. Its eyes were filled with fury, his face lined with determination.

Whatever, whoever had found their way into the boy's body (And Toshinori owed it to the child he'd... He... Toshinori would have answers.) refused to give up. Refused to let that man murder a boy and wear his skin. It stood again and balled his fists, one foot placed in front of the next.

Like a real hero, he'd looked upon evil and he'd said 'No.'

Toshinori Yagi felt a burst of warmth within his chest. Felt the eagerness of his quirk to stand forth and stand firm.

He was out of time, though. The more he over-used his quirk, the more strain he put his body through...

No.

Yagi stepped forward, his eyes hard and fists clenched tightly-

"I am here!" All Might's iconic cry was shouted, loud and proud for the world to know as he cocked one fist down, a wide smile on his face.

"What!?" The villain burbled in fear. "You again?!"

And brought his fist up.

The liquid villain functionally disintegrated, reduced to its constituent parts and smeared across the entire alley. His victim dropped to the ground, rolling free of the clinging traces on him. The force of All Might's uppercut continued unopposed, shifting winds, breaking clouds and bringing rain.

Deep in his chest, All Might knew, he knew...

He'd overdone it.

-----

Naomasa Tsukauchi was used to being exhausted.

He was a police investigator in an underfunded district that had a higher than average villain presence combined with or else caused by a lower than average hero presence. On top of that he was one of the top-requested officers for criminal interrogations.

His quirk, Lie Detector, was the culprit there. The man knew, without fail, when someone lied to him. It wasn't quite all encompassing. He couldn't exactly discern the truth from nothing, no, he simply knew when someone lied to him.

Getting a call from All Might about a case 22-22 related to a suicide was just not how he wanted his day to go.

Body snatching quirks were a nightmare to deal with. They had to figure out the specific mechanics and requirements of them, the limitations and then try and backtrack it until they managed to hunt down the quirk users body and try to get them to vacate their host. They were an absolute nightmare to deal with.

Though, All Might had asked him for help. That wasn't normal.

Even more unusual? All Might was already at the precinct. With the body snatcher sitting next to him. One of the other officers, a man with a cat's head instead of a human one, told him that the boy had been brought in by Toshinori Yagi, All Might's assistant, after he'd jumped into a hostage situation and began to violently assault the villain on the scene.

They were debating trying to push for criminal interference but the boy was... Odd. Initial observations were unclear as to how culpable he actually was.

Tsukauchi nodded to himself, ready as he felt he could be and entered the holding room.

The first thing that hit him was the smell of vomit. The source was a bucket sitting next to the door, full of what looked like lumpy brown coffee grounds.

"Detective Naomasa." Yagi greeted him quietly, a frown on the skeletal man's face. "Thanks for coming."

"It's my job." Tsukauchi deflected politely as he took in the boy's appearance. His face was flush, his eyes were distant but distinctly glowed and the way his head was slowly lolling back and forth was a concerning sign. He could also see that the boy was only wearing a pair of burnt, dirty socks on his feet and had no shoes. One foot was tapping up and down in a constant rhythm, the nervous energy unabating. "As the arresting hero, your presence is no longer necessary. However, if you believe there may be critical information into an ongoing investigation you may request that I ask these questions in your stead."

Yagi nodded along as Tsukauchi talked, reminding him of the rules and policies while explaining them in front of the suspect.

"If I feel that the questions are unnecessary or hostile, they will not be pursued. If you disagree you may file a request with my immediate supervisor and it will be responded to in as timely a fashion as we are able." Honestly, it wasn't that often that Tsukauchi had a hero remain after dropping off a villain. He was truthfully quite curious as to which end it was that Yagi was concerned about: The victim or the body-jacker? "If I feel that your presence impedes questioning, you will be asked to leave. Should you attempt to remain or else inflict bodily harm upon myself or the suspect without due cause, you will be detained. Do you understand these rules and regulations as they've been outlined?"

"Yes, detective. Thank you." The remains of All Might nodded along, visibly subdued.

"Very good." Tsukauchi sighed quietly before sitting down across from the boy. If he were out in the field he'd be setting down a recorder for the conversation but, thankfully, the precinct began recording the rooms any time they were occupied. "Now, young man, you were brought in with no identification on your person. Could you please tell me your name?"

"...What?" The boy asked. In English. "Ah, right, time... Sorry, what?"

"I... Asked for your name, since you were brought in with no identification." The detective had no idea what just happened. The boy had been speaking in English until midway through, when he'd snapped his fingers. "If you could tell us where you live and who your guardian is, that would be immensely helpful."

"Right... Right." The child's head dipped forward, his blurry eyes unfocused before he shot back up. "Sorry, sorry. Focusing is- My head is killing me. My name is @**&@%$#%. I live... Well, that's not right anymore. And I haven't checked if I can actually use the Gate yet. I guess I don't know right now?"

Tsukauchi looked to Yagi, who was himself looking at the boy with confusion in his sunken eyes. He'd heard that, they'd both heard the kid start to say something before the noise was- It felt like something had taken a wire brush to his brain, scraping and scrubbing the information before he'd even begun to understand it.

"I... See." Tsukauchi pulled a notepad out of his shirt and started to write on a clear sheet. He was near the bottom, he was going to need to replace it soon. "I don't suppose you have any aliases that people might know you by?"

"Alec is the name I use on personal business." The boy leaned forward and whispered, as though it were some great secret. "It's better than the other name. I thought it was clever but then I got stuck with it and everyone called me that. Stupid edgy teenage brain..."

"Yes, uh, thank you Alec." Tsukauchi looked to All Might who gave him a subtle shake of his head. That wasn't what the boy's name had been before. But it was the name the parasite was using and had used in the past. "Now, you were brought in for excessive violence and interfering in official hero business. Can you explain what you were thinking?"

"Time. He needed time." The body snatcher's eyes drifted down to the notepad but Tsukauchi noted that they didn't track as though he were reading what was written. "The spiky, loud boy. He was suffocating. It's- That's a bad way to go. He needed time. The ooze thing, it had some solid bits. More solid, I mean. Teeth, eyes, maybe its tongue? I didn't think to check that... I figured, I can fix myself when I get hurt so I could afford to mess up. And spiky... If I messed up, he wouldn't suffocate any faster at least. Time. Needed time."

Tsukauchi wrote that down, fast, along with several observations.

The body jacker claimed he could fix himself in that rambling admission of guilt. Tsukauchi didn't know if that meant he had some kind of regenerative ability as part of his quirk or if that was what he thought of when moving hosts.

"...Ugh." The boy leaned forward again, bringing his hands up to his pale face. "Gods, I can't think straight today. There were a dozen better ways to deal with that mess instead of running in with a freaking pencil."

"There were." Yagi agreed, ignoring the warning glare sent his way by the detective. "We can always look at what was done or said and think of ways we should have handled things better."

That... Was unusual. Yagi was treating the criminal with more respect than Tsukauchi would have expected, considering they were inhabiting the body of a child.

"I see, thank you." Tsukauchi made sure to make a note of All Might's curious behavior, too. "Can you tell me what happened afterwards?"

"Yeah, yeah. Some giant blond bodybuilder showed up out of nowhere and just atomized the slime. Spiky rolled out, somehow safe, can't figure that one out. Then there were these other sentai guys in spandex? I think they were yelling but I don't speak Japanese and I was kinda focusing on not throwing up." And that explained the source of chunky vomit in a bucket near the door. "Stick figure guy here showed up after a few minutes and got the paramedics to let me go. He told me that you guys needed me to give a statement, so I needed to go with him to the police station."

"And we're thankful that you cooperated." Tsukauchi added that to the notes. So far he wasn't willing to press the issue regarding the slime incident. There hadn't been any quirk usage from the body snatcher, which would have limited things regardless. They'd probably just find his actual body and give him a stern warning, remind him that he wasn't in America and that they did things in a certain way for certain reasons. "Backtracking a bit, I was informed that you are actually possessing the body in front of me. Could you explain yourself?"

"I mean, I can try?" The boy didn't even try to deflect the question! Villains with puppeteer quirks almost universally tried to lie or flee when they were found out! "I don't really remember what I was doing before it happened, so I can't help you much there. I came to, though, blind and feeling like I'd just been hit by a truck. I couldn't tell you how many broken bones I had but this body refused to move at all when I gained consciousness. Not a great way to start your day, detective, when you're adding a new level of pain to your top ten list."

"...That's... I, ah, I see." That hadn't been what the detective had been expecting. At all. "Would you... Would you say that the body was, uh, alive? When you took possession of it?"

"Technically? Yeah. The heart was still beating, albeit barely. Hurt like hell, too." The detective put his pen down on the table between himself and the kid. This had just gotten even more complicated. "I don't have anything going on up top, though, which is weird. The last time I got stuck in this position there was at least an echo of the previous tenant."

"This isn't the first time this has happened to you?" Tsukauchi found himself asking, his mouth moving before his brain could stop it.

"Second. Or third, if my first life counts? I- Could you dim the lights, please? My head is throbbing, it feels like it's about to split open." The boy actually dropped his head on the table, pushing his forehead against the cold metal. "God, I don't know if this kid has severe anxiety or one of the attention disorders. I... I swear to god, I'm an idiot."

His head came back up, bleary yellow eyes locked on to Tsukauchi's own. "If I change into something more comfortable, will people get upset?"

"That depends on what you change into." Tsukauchi picked his pen up and added further notes. Multiple quirks? Mutations, maybe?

His eyes tracked the young boy as he stood up and wobbled on his feet. He moved to the back wall, which still didn't offer that much space but it was the most open part of the room.

"I've got, like, two other forms and they're both a lot more me than this could ever be." The kid admitted as he sat down and brought his legs up to his chest. "Figured this out last go around, can't believe I didn't- Actually, yeah, I can totally believe I forgot."

The kid exhaled heavily, once, and then changed.

His clothes held on for a good second before shredding around his form, some massive quadruped with wings. Its hide was jet black but for tiny white specks spread across the body. The massive, angular head with front facing eyes, still that same unearthly glowing yellow, was focused on him.

"Ohh..." It hissed. "Oh, that iss sso much better."

"What?!" Tsukauchi knocked his chair over as he backpedaled, scrambling to get to the opposite side of the room. Away from whatever the hell that thing was. "What are you?!"

Just looking at it made his eyes itch, they kept trying to slide off of the creature. Some small, primal part of his brain was screaming at him to stand perfectly still and remain absolutely silent.

Yagi, in contrast, had grabbed on to his wound and was staring at the beast. His eyes were nearly bulging out of his skull, Tsukauchi could actually see the whites that had been sunken impossibly deep since before the two had even known each other.

"If you musst know?" The creature rasped, its voice lingering over the softer syllables. "I'm a pisces."

There was a bark of hysterical laughter, something the detective realized came from himself as he finally noticed something.

The entire time that thing had been talking? The whole conversation, from start to now?

It had never once tried to lie.

-----

Even without the System, he'd mastered multiple magics and abilities. The gaping hole where things had been torn free, the alien emptiness inside of himself, trying to tease out what was missing without being able to actually use those things was going to be a struggle.

Alec could deal with that. Eventually.

The unrelenting pain that would spike with every beat of the boy's heart? Alec had gotten used to migraines in the past. The difficulty in focusing, though? That had been the real struggle. Holding on to any one train of thought just... Wasn't working. Things would fizzle out and he'd get distracted by anything and everything.

The vague familiarity he'd felt at names and places didn't amount to much when he had to re-cast Tongues every ten minutes. Focusing long enough to manually twist the spell with Lock hadn't even occurred to him until after he'd managed to sit still long enough to Lock in Form of the Dragon.

Being himself, working on his own brain, it made a world of difference.

It let him notice things and actually comprehend them better. Like the amount of magic the spell burned to function and how quickly his pool of the stuff regenerated. It was a tiny sliver and it was topped back up near-instantly.

That meant his magic pool and the regeneration he'd built up had come with him. That was good, fantastic. He could make do with dragon form but Prestidigitation and Fabricate were some of the very best spells in existence for him.

Alec's slitted eyes trailed over the giant, skeletal man and the detective that had been asking him questions. He hadn't thought to try and reign in his aura before transforming and the both of them reacted... Poorly.

Tsukauchi Naomasa. Yagi Toshinori. He recognized those names, now that he could think clearly. This world was familiar to him.

He was in Japan a year or two before a civil war was set to kick off. He was in a Japan that determined Justice based on Strength.

He didn't know whose body he was in, he hadn't had the presence of mind to look at a mirror or window yet. He did know he was going to have to fix that problem, this time without the assistance of a very helpful Endless. Wish could cover part of the issue, assuming he could still cast it since he didn't have a System but there was a very fine balancing act that he honestly didn't trust it with.

Alec recast Tongues, warping the spell with Lock so it would properly stick, and shook himself slightly as he adjusted to his current form. A second of thought later and he'd added Comprehend Languages, too.

"Gentlemen." Alec spoke, his voice a sibilant hiss that shook the two from their frightened stupor. "I find my situation... Problematic."

"Well, yes." The detective was the first to speak. "You, uh, you've demonstrated a variety of- of very rare and dangerous Quirks. You understand that we need to ask you some very important questions, yes?"

"Your assumptions are mistaken, Detective." Alec was increasingly unamused as his thoughts flitted from one problem to the next. He could resolve the body theft issue, though it would take a week or two. Provided he could get his hands on the right person. "I have no Quirks. Nor have I met the faceless halfwit, All For One."

"What do you- He's dead!" Yagi shouted, standing up from his chair. "I fought him! I killed him!"

"You failed." Alec tilted his head to the side, like a cat or dog that was looking at something interesting. "Reduced, weakened, hurt... Yes. But alive. All For One lives, training an apprentice even now so that he can pass on his idiocy."

Alec stood and stretched, his joints cracking and popping, especially in his neck.

"What are you talking about?" The detective asked, his hands gripping the table in a white-knuckled grip. "You're possessing a child- You shapeshifted into a dragon! Those are clearly Quirks!"

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." He could try and explain to them about magic. He could work on the multiverse theory, again, as he'd done for Wonder Woman... But every second he wasted was another second he allowed a child to suffer. "I will make this as clear and concise as I can. I lack the ability to simply vacate the body I inhabit. I do, however, know how to create a new body that I can be transferred to. This will not resolve the fact that I appear to have been placed in a very fresh corpse and I am uncertain as to what happened to the original inhabitant."

If the boy had passed on? Alec would place equal odds on the body being stuck, soulless, in a vegetative state if he were removed from it.

"I know how to fix it. I know of some-one- that can fix it." His yellow eyes bored through the two men, the both of them looking agitated as Alec laid his cards out. "You can help me find them and this issue will be resolved quickly... Or you can not, and my timeline will remain the same."

Honestly? Alec doubted they would be of much help. All Might wasn't the brainless buffoon many people thought of him as, no. The man's combat analysis skills whilst in the field were phenomonal. That being said? He was no criminal investigator and his ability to find one single person in all of Tokyo likely relied entirely on other people.

The police, any government agency? Especially if the Hero Public Safety Commission got involved? They would slow everything down to a grinding halt and demand control over every aspect of what he needed to do. Fight him over the person he needed to help.

"You make it sound as though you'll act, regardless of our approval." Detective Naomasa stood as well, though he seemed uncertain as to what he could possibly do when facing against a dragon.

"Because I will." Alec answered him, refusing to elaborate.

He could have told them that he would need a secure location to store a large jar for the next two weeks as he grew a new body. He could have said that he would do what they would not, hunt down the Yakuza and their 'Eight Precepts of Death'.

"Getting approval for you to use untested quirks, possibly connected to the medical field? That will take months, at least." Naomasa admitted, shaking his head as he did so.

Alec could have told All Might that the apprentice his nemesis had made was the grandson of his once-mentor. Warned them about Re-Destro and his ill-thought out bid for anarchy masked as freedom.

Instead? He stood up and began to walk towards the door.

"You are not cleared to leave, Alec!" The detective shouted before the dragon had reached the door.

The dragon eyed the two with something approaching amusement. All Might looked ready to lunge, Naomasa seemed willing to at least try and do -something-, even if the man didn't know what.

He felt the spell he'd tried to cast fail, unable to reach beyond its original range.

That... Was an inconvenient loss.

"And yet?" The dragon turned back around, his tail whipping across the skeletal blond man and sending him back into his seat. That time, the spell worked.

Touch Range was still pretty significant when one has a tail, after all.

"You cannot stop me." Alec finished as All Might began to clutch at his wound, at the ruined organs barely held together under withered flesh.

As Regeneration began to repair the damage the man had long since grown accustomed to.

The dragon teleported outside before the Hero began to scream.

He spread his wings and took to the sky before the police inside could figure out what had happened, before they could begin to piece together what he had done.

He needed to find some place to hide a reasonably large jar. Figure out how he was going to remove a solid three or four centimeters of flesh for a spell. Hunt down a criminal organization that was torturing a child and then, somehow, convince that child to help him.

Alec sighed as he gazed down upon the city, the hustle and bustle of people trying to live their lives.

He had so much work to do... And he knew it would just be the start.

-----

"Now, breathe in." A small woman said from behind Yagi Toshinori.

He'd been rushed from the precinct to U.A. by a panicking Naomasa after he'd collapsed, grunting and moaning as he tried to hold back cries of raw agony. The entire night, he'd been kept tethered to a bed by Recovery Girl while they tried to figure out what was going on, what caused the episode.

Their first thought? Enemy action. Especially once Naomasa had explained to Nedzu about the possessed child that turned into a dragon and knew far, far too much.

Well, Nedzu had some reservations. Due to the source of information, as well as what was said and the relative non-violence with which the perpetrator had escaped holding? Teleportation, transformation, some kind of omni-glot ability, self-regeneration and possession of a corpse was a long, long list of highly dangerous quirks to place in one individual. If the suspect had wanted to cause serious harm after disabling All Might? He very well could have.

That it claimed to have no connection to All For One was suspect, even with Naomasa confirming that it hadn't been a lie. Whilst well buried now, it was not unknown for the monster to push extra Quirks into a victim and let the resulting abomination either go berserk or else kill itself in pain. For the ancient madman to have found a 'Stable' combination, or perhaps created a sentient Quirk that needed a host, was not exactly out of the question.

Yagi breathed in slowly, deeply. Deeper than he had in years, actually. And it didn't even hurt! There was a bit of stress, sure, like stretching a muscle after sitting for too long but it wasn't the stabbing pain he'd grown used to.

"Good..." Chiyo Shuzenji murmured behind Yagi as she listened to his internals with a stethoscope. "Very good. Your lung capacity is a little on the low end but I'm very surprised considering it was nearly half of what a healthy person used to have."

"Absolutely fascinating..." Nedzu, the strange chimera, muttered as his beady eyes took in the proceedings. Yagi wasn't entirely comfortable with him watching his physical but he hadn't really been able to argue considering he'd been the victim to an unknown Quirk. Or possibly Quirks. "Such a significant improvement, and overnight? No healing or regenerative Quirks have ever been recorded to be so fast or effective!"

"And I'm not seeing any deficits." Chiyo continued, writing at a clipboard. "I would have expected dehydration, possibly anemia and a variety of lacking nutrients at the rapid regrowth of missing tissues but it appears as though your body produced the materials from nothing! I've never heard of a healing Quirk with no downsides before."

"I think the crippling pain might count as a downside, actually." Yagi interjected, rubbing one hand over the former hollow in his side. His organs, more than a few, had either regrown wholesale or else had significant amounts of damage repaired.

All it cost was the loss of a child he'd failed and the uncontested escape of whatever had taken up residence inside of him.

Yagi had failed and he hated the bitter taste it left in his mouth.

"Perhaps so, yes." Nedzu was... Not dismissive, no, but the rat's general disdain for humanity left him just a bit too callous for most people. "Had we known what was happening? I would have been more than happy to request Kayama use her Quirk on you."

Nemuri Kayama, the Pro-Hero Midnight. Her Quirk, Somnambulist, let her expel a gas through her skin that quickly put people to sleep.

"Unfortunately." The all-too-happy chimera continued. "We simply had no idea that you'd been disabled through a healing Quirk! Or that there was someone that was both willing and able to target you in such a fashion. Clearly this 'Alec' is quite confident in his abilities if he would perform such a contrary action."

"Well..." Recovery Girl looked up from the notes she was writing to fix the two of them with a glare. "He's still incredibly far from where he could be. If this old fool-"

The small woman rapped Yagi across the knee with her cane, causing his leg to jerk out reflexively.

"-wants to get back to one-hundred percent? You need to start taking proper care of yourself!" The glare the woman fixed him with could've melted lead. "Eggs, fruits, vegetables- Everything might have been put back in place but it still needs proper nutrition before any of it is as strong as it should be. Stick to light meals at first, boy, your body isn't used to handling something bigger than those terrible protein shakes."

"Of course!" Yagi hastily agreed as the little old lady waved her cane at him threateningly. He probably didn't need to tell her he'd been salivating when she first mentioned food. He'd barely been able to tolerate anything with flavor in years!

"Good!" The woman 'harrumphed' at him and placed her cane back on the ground. "Now, my initial observations suggests that you've experienced a near one-hundred percent recovery of missing or damaged tissues. However, being a school facility, even one as incredibly well funded as our own, I don't have any internal imaging equipment. You'll need to go to an actual hospital for that. I'll write out a request for the full gamut, X-ray, M.R.I., everything. I expect those tests inside of two weeks, do you understand?"

"Yes." Yagi nodded, the harsh look in the little woman's eyes fading slightly as he capitulated. "Thank you for your care."

He watched her walk out of the room, eventually leaving him alone with the principal of U.A.

"Well now..." The rat started after she'd closed the door behind her. "We seem to have quite a bit of information to go over, don't we?"

"...I suppose we do." Yagi agreed with a sigh. He wasn't looking forward to this. At all.

"It's rather difficult for me to choose a place to start. So many mysteries, all dropped on us at once?" Nedzu's expressions shifted slightly, twisting into something more bestial than his usual act of aping humans. If Yagi had to guess? He'd say the rat was eager. "A shapeshifter, healing quirks, teleportation... That, combined with a distressingly credible warning that All For One isn't as gone as we'd hoped?"

"Except those two aren't related." Yagi knew the chimera was waiting for his input, the Quirked animal was always rather excited to have a captive audience. "At least, assuming that Alec was not just Truthful but also correct."

"Yes, a rather crucial distinction." Nedzu agreed, nodding along for Yagi's benefit. "Naomasa's report was quite clear about the disdain our informant had for the appropriate process but that was after his transformation. He also claimed that the boy had a significant change in personality upon shifting, comparing the new form with Ryukyu. Of course, that was simply his report. Now that you're well enough to talk, I'd like to hear what you observed."

"Well..." Yagi hesitated, the paper sheets under his hands crinkling loudly in the small room.

"It all started when I saved a young man from a villain..."

-----

Slitted yellow eyes stared dispassionately down on a rather nicely decorated compound deep in the heart of... Alec didn't know.

The various prefectures of Tokyo were a little more difficult for him to keep track of than he'd like to admit to.

He'd spent a few days recuperating in an abandoned warehouse, half-afraid to try and open a Gate into his demi-plane. The door had been in his inventory when... Well, he assumed it was. Alec didn't actually know how he'd died. There'd been fighting, explosions, magic of the highest order being flung with wild abandon. Unless he'd lost time or had the memories erased by Terra, he assumed he'd been killed instantly.

Conjure Food and Drink had covered his dietary needs, much to his own displeasure, and Adjustable Disguise had let him shift what he'd looked like, if not his size.

He'd needed the time to really get his head wrapped around his current situation. And possibly start grieving the life he'd lost. With the Source Wall intact? With no way to contact Terra?

He didn't know if he could go home.

Alec chose to focus on his current set of problems, instead. Body, shelter, income and then, then he could break down over what he'd lost.

The first problem, he was dealing with in two parts. Wish, a spell he'd dragged kicking and screaming to a level of mastery that allowed him to ignore its requirements, had been used to cast the spell Clone. Which had been absolutely miserable, he'd used his claws to extract a cube of his own flesh and blood as a core material for the secondary spell.

With a duplicate of himself growing under the accelerating effects of Haste, Alec had to look at the second part. Re-Ensouling the body he was inhabiting. Wish might have been able to do that, but he wasn't actually sure. He didn't know about any kind of psychopomps or death realms in this reality. Without some kind of knowledge, some kind of certainty, he had to consider other options.

The best of which had him hovering above a compound in the dead of night, his keen eyes watching the insipid little monsters below crawl about like ants.

They thought themselves strong.

They thought themselves to be the monsters that filled the nightmares of other people.

They would, instead, become something of an 'Object Lesson' on making such assumptions.

-----

 

[Mister Ficser]

Kai Chisaki hated people. Disgusting, thoughtless insects. Covered in filth, spreading disease as readily as they wasted oxygen.

He would fix that. He would find a cure!

He knew he was on the way to succeeding. They'd recently made a breakthrough using test samples that could suppress the sickness in someone. Soon, soon they'd have the formula perfect, soon they'd have a means of curing a 'Quirk' for good!

Then? Then they could begin his glorious mission of cleansing the planet of filth, restoring the world to the way it was supposed to be.

"Sir?" One of his subordinates spoke up, dragging Chisaki out of his dreams of a brighter tomorrow. "Shinji's late to check in and he hasn't been answering his phone."

"And you're bothering me with this... Why?" He demanded, fingering the edge of the glove on his right hand.

"...Because the two guys we sent to check on him haven't reported back yet." His subordinate, a tall man with pale green hair was sweating nervously as Chisaki stopped unrolling the rubber glove and instead fixed the man with a cold glare.

Kai stood up slowly, his hands quickly going through the checklist he'd made for having to deal with any... Issues.

His facemask was on, gloves were in place, suit fully buttoned- Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. Everything was in order and all was right in his world.

"Where was Shinji supposed to be?" Kai asked as he began to get moving. He hated having to deal with interference in his mission. He hated the incompetents working under him even more.

"Around the back." His subordinate... Kaji? Kaji said. "No shipments today, so he was just supposed to keep an eye on the back entrance."

"And now him and two of the others are gone." Kai stated, a stiff nod from Kaji confirming it. "Is there anything on the cameras?"

"Nothin' boss." Kaji answered as they got to the door leading out. "Shinji just walked out, screen went black and then nothin'. Picture never came back and when we sent out Touji and Kensuke, they stopped answering."

"We got someone thinkin' they're real smart, eh?" Kai was more than familiar with how heroes acted and this wasn't it. The damned, disgusting showboats would make a spectacle out of trying to bust him.

No, this was some other gang. Thinking they were smart, thinking they could pick off his crew one by one.

Kai Chisaki hadn't taken control of the Yakuza by being meek.

Whatever fools were trying to play this game? He'd show them he was the better player.

The other gangs knew better than to mess with Overhaul- He was just going to have to give these upstarts their first and final lesson.

Stepping out the traditional sliding door, Chisaki found himself rather confused at what he saw.

Nothing.

No signs of a struggle. No fight. The back segment was clean and clear, absent of anything that would indicate something was wrong.

Except, of course, that it was not supposed to be empty. One of his men was supposed to be back here, keeping a live eye on things to prevent this exact scenario!

Chisaki began to unroll the glove on his right hand as he surveyed the back garden. There was nothing to see, nothing different, nothing out of place.

"...I don't see nothin', boss." His man, Kaji, whimpered next to him as Overhaul removed his other glove.

"Because there's nothing to see." Kai growled, his sharp eyes darting from stone to grass and back again. "Bunch of goddamn cowards! Picking off our boys, hiding, thinking we won't find 'em..."

Kai placed a hand on the ground and spikes erupted from the spot in front of him, ripping into a shadow at the edge of the grounds.

It struck nothing, the spikes made up of the stone path underfoot striking nothing but air.

"There's nothing out here, Kaji." Overhaul huffed, his gimlet glare darting between shadows. "You sure that jackass didn't cut the camera so I wouldn't catch him taking a smoke break?"

Kai despised smokers, wasteful idiots stinking up the air, leaving a mess behind them.

"...Kaji?" Kai asked when he recieved no answer. The leader of the Shie Hassaikai turned to his employee and found himself facing a truly strange sight.

A statue of Kaji. A perfectly made statue of Kaji, right in the position the man had been standing when Overhaul had turned to strike at the shadows.

"What?" The yakuza barked, taking several steps back and turning his head wildly. There was still nobody to be found. Just him... And the statue of Kaji. "What is- Who did this?! Where are you, coward!? Come out and face me like a man!"

Kai heard nothing. Nobody answered. Sweat beaded down the back of his neck as he turned left and right, looking for whatever, whoever had turned Kaji to stone.

"You think you're hot shit?!" He shouted, his arms kept at the ready, his nerves on a hair trigger. "Can't be that tough if you're too scared to face me!"

Nobody answered.

Kai felt his something cold crawling down his spine. The shadows, they looked deeper. The still silence in the air was more and more oppressive.

Finally, finally he couldn't take it. Kai turned to run back into the compound. He was just a few steps away from the door whe-

-----

Eri was a young girl. Perhaps five years old. Maybe six?

She wasn't sure.

She'd been here for a long time. She'd been scared for a long time.

The bad man... He hurt her. Constantly. Tore her apart to take her blood, to take her curse.

She'd tried to run away.

She hadn't gotten far.

The scary man, with the bird face. He'd caught her. He'd... He...

Eri pulled her knees to her chest, refusing to finish the thought.

All she wore was a surgical gown, stained crimson with her own blood where she'd been unmade and then put back together. Over and over and over again.

She didn't look up when she felt someone stomping down the hall to her cell. She didn't look up when the door was slowly, carefully opened. She clenched her eyes shut when she felt a shadow looming over her.

She didn't want to scream this time. The 'Overhaul' was always slower when she screamed.

"Nho..." A quiet voice rasped over her head, something... She didn't understand the way it sounded. "Nho, nho, nho..."

But if she had to describe it?

It sounded like the voice over her head was hurt.

"...Child?" The voice hissed, further away this time. "Eri? Eri, you won't- He can't-"

She heard something heavy hit the ground and clutched her knees against herself even tighter.

She tensed in fear when she felt a pair of great claws wrap around her, squeezing her eyes even harder and doing her best not to scream. She still whimpered, though.

Instead of tearing pain, of fire forcing its way through her very bones... She was pulled against something. It was smooth and warm, almost uncomfortably so.

But... It didn't hurt?

"Eri?" The voice cracked, a sob escaped from it, guttural and deep. "He won't hurt you again. He won't."

The broken girl finally cracked open her eyes and looked in wonder at the thing hugging her.

A giant lizard, it looked like it was made out of the sky at night.

"...You're crying." She whispered, staring in confusion as tears leaked from the eyes set deeply in the great, angular head of the lizard holding her.

"I'm ssorry!" It said, its eyes still shut. "I'm sso ssorry... I sshould have been here ssooner. Fasster."

Eri squeezed her eyes shut again as she felt her own tears start to break free. She didn't understand why the thing holding her was crying. She didn't understand why it was holding her without hurting her.

Hesitantly, carefully she tried to wrap her arms around the creature. She barely managed to get halfway around its sides.

She didn't understand but this...?

This felt... Nice.

-----

Sir Nighteye was a tall, lanky man. His hair, dark green, was kept short and neat, though it did have several streaks of yellow that matched his eyebrows and his eyes. Unlike most other pro-heroes, he chose a simple suit to match the more administrative duties that he was far more effective at.

Punching things was much better left to heroes like his former boss and idol, All Might.

Sir Nighteye was much, much better suited to data analysis, recon, planning and the countless other small, critical parts that let the heroes and police properly do their jobs with the minimum of collateral damage.

That didn't mean that the data had to make sense.

They'd been watching the Yakuza compound for months, gathering intelligence and building a case against each and every recognized individual. The kind of operation that could, and would, take years to get rolling and would likely be on the news for months until people got bored.

Then...? Everything came to a halt. The compound had become completely inactive, literally overnight. There had been a few days where the various observing agencies had held their breath, watching and waiting to see if it was some kind of a ploy but nothing had come of it.

Then Nighteye had gotten the call. The police had no idea what they were looking at and were requesting help from all of their consultants on the case.

Mirai Sasaki was increasingly nervous, truth be told, when he passed by several well-known Quirk specialists inside the Yakuza compound.

"It's so... Quiet." His most recent intern, a young man named Mirio Togata whispered as they walked through the empty halls.

Mirai disagreed. Silently, but he disagreed. He could practically feel whispers scratching at his ears, almost hear the words that were just beyond his perception, the secrets they promised to drag to light. It was an altogether unique and uncomfortable experience.

If that were the only oddity inside the compound, Mirai would be willing to chalk it up to a simple Quirk effect. It was hardly unheard of for people to have 'Spooky' quirks that were hard to control, especially if they were young or untrained.

"It feels like we're in an old movie." His sidekick, Centipeder whispered. The man's Quirk was one of the many Mutation Quirks, transforming his head into that of a large arthropod's. "The colors are washed out."

"Its so creepy..." His other sidekick, Bubble Girl, whispered from behind them. "Does anyone else feel like you're being watched?"

All of that put together? There was either one incredibly powerful Quirk at play here or else a themed group of villains had made an assault on the Yakuza and their effects had yet to fade.

They cautiously made their way to the back entrance, the place the Chief of Police had initially directed them. Mirai was not prepared for what he saw.

A statue. Of the man that would have killed him.

"This... Isn't right." Mirai, Nighteye whispered as he stared at the blank, frightened orbs of the man he'd seen in his visions of the future.

Kai Chisaki. Overhaul. The man that Nighteye's Quirk, Foresight, had foreseen tearing Mirai apart.

The man that would break Mirio's Quirk, Permeation, using some kind of new weapon.

Nighteye had never seen him in person. He'd only witnessed his wicked acts through the power of his own Quirk, unable to hear his name, barely able to piece together the identity of the mad, brilliant leader of the Yakuza.

"He's not the only one." The Chief of the local Precinct grunted, a man named Gendo. "Got another one nearby, three of 'em in the bushes 'round the corner. Whole goddamn complex underground is full of 'em."

"...Is there a Quirk in the registry that could do something like... No." Mirai shook his head, his mind racing. Powerful Quirks came with powerful drawbacks. He didn't want to imagine just what kind of monster could transmute countless people into stone. "How many statues have been found?"

"So far?" Gendo was not a happy looking man. Short cropped black hair, orange glasses that Mirai knew were meant to inhibit his quirk. He had an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, the butt of which was likely chewed beyond recognition. "About a hundred, hundred and twenty. Enforcers, scientists, assistants- Bunch of 'em in costume, too, so it looks like whoever did this got about half of the leadership. Anyone that was at all involved down there? Whoever did this, they didn't discriminate."

"...And considering the costumes were turned to stone as well, we can't find out who they were underneath." Mirai sighed and reached up to adjust his tie, red with white polka dots. "Was there anything else of note?"

"...Yeah." Gendo admitted, looking to Bubble Girl, Kaoruko Awata and Mirio Togata. "It's pretty bad, though. You sure you want...?"

"Yes." Nighteye told the man, no hesitation in his voice. However bad it was, he knew his team needed to see it.

"Alright then." Gendo grunted and spat out his untouched cigarette next to the statue of Kai. "Come on, then. Try not to touch the statues."

Mirai's group of four followed the man through a hidden door, the button for which looked to have been hidden under a vase that was sitting on its side. Through the door and down the stairs, they found countless other petrified gangsters. Some were counting money, some working at machines that Mirai didn't know the immediate function of. None of them looked alarmed.

Whoever had done this? They'd somehow managed to do so without being seen. The danger they represented grew more and more severe in his mind.

After fifteen minutes of walking, traversing twists and turns and then backtracking when they inevitably got lost, Gendo showed them to a room.

Mirai understood, now, why the man had hesitated. Had asked him if he wanted to bring the younger members of his team.

The tiny, child sized bed. Small surgical gowns, far too small to fit an adult.

Bloodstains on every surface...

Nighteye couldn't fault Mirio for running off to one of the lavatories they'd passed, his hands clutching at his mouth to try and contain the sickness trying to leave his body.

"We've sent samples off for analysis." Gendo told him, glaring into the room. "Forensics had a look earlier, though they aren't done. A lot of the blood here is old- This was done before the attack on the compound. It's also where we found our first real clue on the perpetrator."

Mirai's eyes followed the finger Gendo pointed at the ground. To a footprint in the blood. A giant footprint. With claws.

"That's... Especially large." Mirai swallowed slowly as his brain supplied the numbers on the estimated height and weight of someone with such a Quirk. How they could have snuck through an entire compound? Or were they perhaps an accomplice of the Petrification Quirk? Dozens of questions and the only answer he'd found simply made more.

"Some of our experts have looked it over." Gendo admitted, drawing another cigarette out of a pack in his breast pocket. "It's a speculative match for someone involved in an incident over in Musufatu. Details are classified but the point of contact is Nedzu with a CC to All Might."

"...I see." Nighteye's mouth was dry as his mind raced. He didn't want to deal with All Might- He idolized the man but he'd also foreseen his death and Yagi had disregarded Mirai's pleas to slow down, to stop, because he believed the world needed him. That the world needed the Symbol of Peace more than he could afford to stop. "The child that was here... Have they been found?"

"...No." Gendo admitted, chewing on his cigarette.

"...I'll call them, then." Mirai's stomach felt like it had been hollowed out. He didn't want to do that. He didn't want to look upon the decrepit remains of his hero and know there was nothing he could do.

But whatever reservations he had? Whatever disagreements remained between him and Yagi?

It was immaterial in the face of a suffering child.

-----

Nedzu had learned to enjoy many things in life.

A good cup of tea. A good smoke. A touch of schadenfreude, that one was always a delight.

The sophont animal's Quirk, High Specs, made the last one particularly easy.

Though, sometimes? Events simply lined up perfectly without him needing to actively intercede. A knowing smile, a quiet hum, people were always quick to assume he'd had a direct paw rather than being able to see the coincidences for what they were.

Such as the one that brought All Might and his former side-kick, Sir Nighteye back into talking with each other.

Nedzu had taken over as the lead investigator on the hero end of things with the body jacker of young Midoriya Izuku and All Might had demanded, rather reasonably for the man, that he be included. Once the investigating officers had collected their evidence and one of their more talented employees had recognized that some evidence from their crime scene might match the details of a wanted person report, the pertinent information had been forwarded to Nedzu's office.

Between the information they'd gathered from All Might, Detective Naomasa and now the circumstantial evidence from a raid that took down the head of Japan's Yakuza?

"This is insane!" Mirai didn't quite shout but the dour man had raised his voice after he'd read through the transcript of what this 'Alec' had claimed in the Police Station. "The number of Quirks that we're looking at- Extraordinarily rare and coveted ones, at that? All in one person? You could have told me All For One himself was the culprit, it would be easier to believe."

"It does paint a rather curious picture, now doesn't it?" Nedzu nearly grinned, at least as much as his face allowed. "Teleportation, shape-shifting, puppeteering. Any one of those could make for a remarkably difficult villain to deal with. It can apparently heal itself and others as well, though the method does leave something to be desired. We suspect Alec may also have some sort of mind-affecting aura, though we've not been able to verify. And of course, assuming he was involved in petrifying the Yakuza? We may have to add notes regarding some kind of electronics tampering abilities, advanced stealth and the ability to convert humans into granite."

Nedzu poured himself a cup of tea as Mirai digested just what they were dealing with.

"Sit Nighteye..." All Might tried to speak, hesitating briefly before choosing to push through. "As hard as it might seem to believe, I saw him firsthand. I saw a dead body wake up. I saw them heal it, instantly. He told us his intentions, his motivations before he escaped."

"Yes, I did read that." Mirai inhaled heavily before glaring back down at the paper. "He needs to 'Create his own body' and then 'be transferred into it'. He also made the ridiculous claim that he doesn't have a Quirk. Practically in the same breath he said he'd never encountered All For One, whom he claimed is still alive. And training an apprentice."

"All of which was verified as being 'True' by a Lie Detector Quirk." Nedzu helpfully added, placing his tea on the table next to his seat before crawling up into it.

"Of which there are several methods of decieving." Mirai sat back and pushed his glasses up, his tired eyes drifting from Nedzu to All Might. "...He used his Quirk, Ability, whatever you want to call it. He used it on you, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did." Yagi admitted freely. "It was the most agonizing night of my life, possibly worse than having my organs blown out to begin with. But my time limit has been increasing, Mirai. I'm not coughing up blood anymore."

Nedzu idly stirred his tea as he watched the precognitive hero close his eyes and think. His own thoughts on the matter were mixed, much like the attack on All Might. The motivations behind it, the long-term impact, the short-term benefits and the other potential options this Alec may have had.

"Gentlemen." The chimera spoke up, drawing both sets of eyes unto him. "Let us assume that all of our information is currently accurate. Alec took up residence in a recently vacated body. He followed along as All Might dragged him to an ongoing crime scene, where he attempted to intervene, poorly. According to the report he seemed to only be semi-coherent and was unable to adequately focus, possibly due to poor compatability with the, ah, 'Wetware' of his new host."

All Might shuffled uncomfortably in his seat whilst Mirai was rubbing at his temples, right where his crow's feet were forming.

"I'm sorry?" Sir Nighteye asked, adding his input in the brief pause that Nedzu had placed for exactly that. "But I wasn't aware that Possession Quirks cared for some nebulous 'Compatability' with the host?"

"And normally, they do not." Nedzu agreed, his tail wagging behind him. "The normal method that those Quirks act on is to super-impose the consciousness of the possessor over the possessed, though a sort of link with their original body is typically maintained. Alec has no such anchor, his existence was wholly placed within Midoriya Izuku. A young man that, according to the few reports we could get that were... Worthwhile."

Nedzu's tail drooped there and his hackles raised. The people that they'd talked to had been mostly useless. One of whom, the boy that had been extracted from the Sludge Villain, had proven especially hostile and less than helpful.

"Midoriya Izuku was a fairly gentle child, rather timid but he had a habit of rambling or mumbling if he saw a Quirk that he thought was interesting. His mother was especially helpful, though understandably rather distraught." Nedzu hadn't expected to find himself so personally invested, truthfully, but the boy's hobby had caught his interest.

His 'Hero Notebooks for the Future' may have been filled with rather amateur observations but it showed promise. It showed a child that was willing to take the time and observe what was going on, to try and understand the mechanics and reasons behind how a Quirk worked and why it was used a certain way. It showed a child that was dedicated to comprehending the secrets of the world and that child was... Gone.

"Alec, meanwhile, while not aggressive? Showed a level of demanding confidence and an obstinate refusal to capitulate to restrictions placed upon his own interests. From the video of his questioning, the shift into the Draconic form precipitated a dramatic change from distracted and unable to focus to something that was both able and willing to dedicate itself to a goal." Nedzu paused briefly to take a sip of his delightfully aromatic tea. "The differences are, if you'll excuse the pun, like night and day."

"Alright then." Mirai sighed again, looking through the papers in front of him. "Let's assume that the healing was less an attack and more a means of buying time. Unless his only goal was to simply escape from Police Custody, why not use his petrification ability?"

"Well, let's assume that Alec was aware of All Might's identity. Let's take that a step further and assume he knew about All Might's injury." Nedzu wasn't grinning as he sorted through the photographs he'd been sent by the officers that had examined the crime scene at the Yakuza compound. "When he escaped from custody, he did so without harming anyone. When he attacked the Yakuza, he petrified everyone. Rather simply put, he's using different levels of force for different individuals."

Nedzu slid one photo in particular across the table. All Might had to lean forward and stretch to reach it. The way the man blanched as he saw the small bed very adequately offered context for the man. He passed it to Mirai who was adequately familiar with it already.

"The labs sent me a report earlier today." Nedzu admitted, all traces of humor lost from his body. "There was significant bio-chemical research equipment throughout the facility and all of it had traces of one blood sample on them. A blood sample that, as best the labs have been able to determine, came from a girl somewhere between the ages of four and six. What they were attempting to accomplish, we don't know yet."

"All of that blood?" Yagi's fists trembled on the table. "That was from one person? That all came from one child?"

"Yes." Nedzu answered, no fancy word games at play. "And somehow, Alec was aware of that. Then, rather than informing any agency that might have been able to act? He infiltrated, by himself, without being detected, apparently disabled literally every person inside the facility and then extracted her. Somehow leaving behind nothing more than a footprint."

"Well..." Mirai leaned forward, his head in his hands. "At least he's discriminant with his targets."

"Yes, and I appreciate that." Yagi said as he reached over and took the bloody photo out of Mirai's hands. "But now I have to wonder something far worse; What is Alec doing with a young, severely abused child? And why would he go through so much difficulty for her?"

Nedzu did not have an answer for him, unfortunately, and that bothered him greatly.

It was, after all, a very good question...

 

[Mister Ficser]

With a child in tow, Alec hadn't been able to afford the kind of hesitation he'd succumbed to before. He'd mustered up his courage and opened a door, using the magic to turn it into a gateway into his demi-plane.

It... Had been a bit larger than he remembered it. Not terribly surprising, really, but it was the easiest thing for him to notice.

It was less painful than noticing the burnt and shredded training dummy Kary had been practicing on. Or the spots where Jinx had been training some of her illusion magics and the spells had gotten a little too real.

Alec had been forced to cast Mini on himself so he could lead Eri into his home, clean her up and put her to bed in a very oversized shirt (Purple and black stripes? Why had Jinx left it here...?). Her placid, silent acceptance...

He knew it wasn't healthy to ignore his own issues. He knew that.

But until he figured something else out, Eri had to be his priority.

Still, with her asleep and him someplace safe... Alec swallowed heavily as he looked into a mirror in the bathroom, steeling himself for what he knew he had to do.

He dispelled his Dragon form, and he immediately felt like he was wearing the wrong skin. His head felt like his brain was a size too big, like his heart was thumping in his ears with the bass turned all the way up.

He ignored it for a moment- He had to, as he finally saw... Himself.

The yellow eyes... He disregarded the yellow eyes. The way they glowed, he knew that meant they were his.

The triangle of freckles on his cheeks, the mop of unruly green hair atop his head. He reached out in disbelief, his hand meeting the one approaching in the mirror.

He was in Izuku.

He'd been stuck inside the protagonist of the story!

"What the Hell was Terra thinking?" He begged, the pieces of what had happened trying to slot themselves together.

His breathing picked up until he was panting. His heart was hammering away in his chest. He couldn't- He couldn't think! His lungs burned, panick drowned out his thoughts, he couldn't- He couldn't- He couldn't-

He cast Form of the Dragon and a tiny piece of the night sky stared back at him in the mirror. His breathing slowed down, his heart calmed, his racing thoughts settled into some semblance of normal.

One claw came up and covered his eyes, the artificial light felt too bright. His head was killing him.

Alec cast Heal on himself, the pain dropping from intense pounding to minor pressure instantly.

He'd... Woken up in the middle of the street. He thought he'd been run over but... Had Izuku fallen from somewhere, instead? All Might had been right there, he'd been dragged off to see about the Sludge Villain next, he-

"Oh." Alec whispered as the puzzle began to assemble itself. "Oh, Izuku."

He hadn't been given the courtesy of a working body -before- the inhabitant had decided to...

Looking at the mirror, Alec could almost see the hurt child he was forced to wear.

"I wonder if Katsuki knows that he got what he wanted?" Alec already intended to fix this mess. It had run into a roadblock when he'd seen Eri and realized that, no, nothing about his plan was easy. That trying to force it wouldn't be right, even if he could make it work.

The dragon blinked back tears and shook his head. One thing at a time. One problem at a time.

He was pulled out of his spiraling thoughts when he heard a soft tapping at he bathroom door.

"Mister Alec?" Eri's voice was practically a whisper, one he could only hear because of his current state. "I gotta go potty."

"Alright, Eri." Alec shouted loud enough to be heard, though his voice was still squeaky due to his size. "I'll be right out."

One thing at a time.

-----

Eri didn't know what was going on. Not at all.

The big lizard man had taken her away from her room. Out of the big house she was kept in. He'd even taken her someplace new, someplace strange when he'd opened a door that went someplace different.

It was supposed to be the bathroom but it opened up to a big place that was outside!

He'd led her to a weird looking house and then got really small, directing her inside. She saw a second one of him appear for a moment before it flitted out a window and she was pushed into the bathroom.

She was used to being scrubbed raw with cold water. The soft wash-cloth, hot water, real soap that didn't burn or itch afterwards... It was almost like back before she'd erased her daddy. Back when mommy still loved her.

Mister Alec gave her a big shirt to wear that was warm and soft, but it was also kind of dusty. It made her sneeze a few times before he'd done something and it was suddenly clean.

She'd been expecting her normal dinner, rice with spinach and beef. And pills. She wasn't expecting the other Mister Alec to fly back in with a big red apple. It was firm and kind of hard to eat until he cut it apart for her. Then it was sweet but also kind of sour.

It was the first sweet thing she'd eaten in... Ever since her mom gave her to the old man, then he gave her to Overhaul.

Then he'd put her to bed. A real bed, with blankets and pillows!

She'd stayed awake until exhaustion claimed her, afriad to close her eyes. Afraid she'd wake up and be back in the room, wearing nothing but a thin gown and Overhaul would be waiting. Waiting to tear her apart, to take her blood.

Instead? She woke up in the bed, in a tangle of blankets and sheets.

Mister Alec wasn't in the house but he'd left a few fruits for her on the table. She'd hesitated for a long, long time before her stomach rumbling and hurting pushed her to eat.

It felt weird. She was afraid to go outside, she'd seen metal people doing stuff through the windows. Holding watering cans and looking at plants, one had even waved at her when it saw her!

Instead, she explored the house. There were weird things all over the place, like this big canister thing with a bunch of metal sticks in it. Or the empty dog food bowls that were covered in dust. There were letters on them but Eri couldn't read yet. She especially couldn't read English yet.

Mister Alec came back later in the day, a bag in his claws. It had clothes, things that actually fit her. Some of the stuff was a little big, like the red overalls he'd gotten her, but he'd just rolled up the cuffs of the legs and said she'd grow into it.

("I found a gig repairng things. It was some pretty good money but I had to pretend it took me a lot longer to fix a car than it really did.")

It had been... Nice. The little flying lizard ("Dragon, Eri. I even went and stole a princess!") had even made dinner. He'd cooked noodles with mushrooms and fish and... And... It was actual hot food, he'd made it for her. It wasn't reheated instant noodles or icky spinach with cold beef.

She went to bed that night wearing a comfortable pair of pajamas decorated with the characters from a cartoon she vaguely remembered watching when she still lived her mom.

"Eri?" A few days after he'd taken her from Overhaul, he had a question for her that wasn't what kind of food she wanted to eat, or what color she liked. "I have to go and see someone. I owe them an explanation for some stuff. Do you want to come along?"

"Are you taking me back?" She'd asked, fear in her voice. She knew he was going to get tired of her! "I-I'll stop eating so much food! I'll sleep outside! Please, just don't-"

"No." Mister Alec said, sighing heavily before pulling her against him. One giant claw resting gently against the back of her head as he held her in a hug. "Nothing like that. No. I need to talk to someone and I wondered if you wanted to come along? Get some sunlight, get out of the house for a bit?"

"I'm not going back?" She begged, tears in her eyes. "You promise?"

"I promise, Eri." He let go, but tapped her very softly with one claw atop her head. "Noone will make you go back. I won't let them."

"...Okay." She pulled her face away from his scales and rubbed the tears out of her eyes.

He'd leaned down on the ground and then helped her on to his back, she was sitting right at the base of his neck when he stood back up on all four legs. She was holding on, her arms and legs wrapped around the long neck in front of her, terrified she might fall.

"You alright back there?" Mister Alec asked her, tilting his head to the left and right to try and look but he only managed to make her sway around instead. "Alright, let's get a move on. Tell me if you need anything, alright?"

"Okay!" She shouted, watching in awe as he waved a hand in front of himself, first changing the color of his scales from night sky to dark purple, and then he opened a hole in the space there! She could see it led out into an alley.

Mister Alec stepped through it without so much as a backwards glance.

Inside of his home, it had been nice and quiet. She could occasionally hear the metal people outside doing things but there wasn't any loud noises. No cars screeching, there wasn't a dull roar as people walked and talked, their voices intermingling into white noise. She could hear explosions in the distance.

Her arms trembled, the noises were too loud. The lights were too bright. She clutched on to Mister Alec so hard she was afraid she would choke him but he barely seemed to notice.

"We can go back if you want to, Eri?" But he -did- notice.

"I'm okay." She nearly whispered against him.

"Alright. Just let me know if you need to go back, okay?" He asked her, his voice as soft as it could get while he was in his big form.

It took a while for them to get to wherever they were going. More than enough time for Eri to adjust to maintaining her balance as Mister Alec moved. Eventually she opened her eyes and looked out at the sea of people. From her position, she could actually see over most of them.

But only most. Some people were just really tall. A few were really big. One lady had a really, really tall neck.

It only took them about fifteen minutes to get to their destination but for Eri, it felt so much longer. She was outside. She was able to see other people.

And she wasn't afraid that she'd be taken back to Overhaul.

Mister Alec eventually took her to an apartment complex. Four big concrete buildings that all looked identical. Eri felt him sigh heavily and droop for a moment before he stepped forward and began to climb the stairs of the building with the big number two on the side. He stopped, his head ducked low to avoid hitting the cieling overhead, and knocked on one of the doors.

A little lady answered the door after a few moments. She was kind of round and her green hair was messy. She smelled like tears.

"Midoriya Inko?" Mister Alec asked, his voice sounded soft and sad. "My name is Alec. I'm here to talk about your son."

"You...!" The lady glared at Mister Alec, but Eri couldn't understand why. "How dare... Is that... Is that a child?"

"Yes." Mister Alec said, leaning low to the ground. "Eri, sweetie, do you mind getting off? Mrs.Midoriya and I need to talk about some things."

"...Okay." The small, horned child agreed after a moment before sliding off and standing next to him.

"Thank you, Eri." She nodded at him before turning her gaze towards Mrs.Midoriya and Alec continued. "Now, I'm not opposed to having this conversation out here. However, you may prefer we do this somewhere more private. The choice, of course, is yours Mrs.Midoriya."

The lady turned her gaze from Mister Alec's face and then to Eri's. She did that several times before quietly sighing and stepping back, into her home.

Mister Alec shrunk down and flew in. Eri followed right behind him, taking off her shoes by the door. She noticed there were pictures on the wall of a boy. He had a really big, warm smile and messy green hair, just like Mrs.Midoriya.

Was that her son? Was that who Mister Alec was here to talk to her about?

"...Why are you here?" The woman asked, pain and exhaustion in her voice as she led the duo to her dining room.

"To talk." Mister Alec answered her. "I can't promise anything more than that. Not yet at least."

"About my son?" Mrs.Midoriya asked, tired eyes locked on Alec's own. "About how you took him? Is this- Is this some sick game for you?!"

"No." Mister Alec said, though he was looking down at the ground rather than the woman yelling at him. "This isn't a game. I am trying to make things right."

"Trying to- You can't make this right!" The woman screamed, tears gushing from her eyes. "Unless you can give me back my Izuku, you can't make this right!"

"I know!" He shouted back, one claw brought up to cover his eyes. "I... I know. I know."

Eri had brought one hand up to her chest and started backing away when the little lady started yelling but froze when Mister Alec turned to look at her. His eyes... He looked so sad.

"Eri?" He asked her, visibly hesitating as he did so. "...I need you to use your Quirk on me?"

"No!" She shouted, her entire body trembling. "No! I-I won't! You'll disappear! Like daddy!"

"Eri." His voice was soft and calm, his eyes locked on hers. "I trust you. I believe in you. Please. Someone did something terrible to her son, and now I'm stuck inside of him. Please."

He snapped his fingers and turned into a small, naked boy. Then he did it again and turned into a teenaged naked boy. The same one in the pictures she saw. He leaned down on one knee in front of her, his yellow eyes locked on her own.

"Inko is hurting, the same way you did back when you lost your father. She needs a hero." He smiled, that same bright, sunny smile that she saw in the pictures. "And you can be that hero."

"...I'm scared." She admitted, her entire body trembling. "What if-"

"It'll be okay, Eri." Mister Alec placed one hand on the top of her head. "I believe in you."

-----

All Might had found his efficiency rising dramatically with every passing day. His legs were faster. His arms were stronger. His lungs, deeper.

For one truly miserable night? All Might thought it might have actually been a fair trade!

"I am here!" His phone rang, pulling his attention away from the setting sun as he stood atop a building in his full, muscular form. "I am here!"

"Hello?" He answered.

"Mister Yagi?" A rather harried woman on the other end asked. "I was told by, ah, Mister Nedzu to call if anything about my, my son turned up? His line was busy though, so I called the second number. All Might's secretary?"

"...Yes, that's correct." It took Toshinori a moment to piece together everything but the only current case that he and Nedzu were collaborating on was the one involving the body snatcher. "Has something come up?"

"...Yes." The woman hesitated. Her voice sounded strained, as though she'd been crying. "A... Dragon mutation quirk user showed up at my door almost an hour ago."

"Alec." Toshinori had personally looked up any Quirks in the registry that were similar to Ryukyu. The numbers were nearly non-existant. Beyond that, they'd also been searching for him alongside the police. How something that was bigger than a horse could evade detection was almost as big a mystery as... Everything else, honestly. "Are you alright?"

"Yes. Yes, we're fine." We? "He, he brought a little girl with him. She used her Quirk and- Izuku is back."

"That's- That's fantastic news!" Yagi barely kept himself from shouting.

"Ah, well... It seems she overused her Quirk, I think? She's asleep on the couch right now." The woman sounded better and better as she spoke, which was good. It also sounded like they may have found the missing child from the Yakuza case, which was also fantastic! "And my son looks like he's about eight years old."

...What?

"...What?"

-----

Whilst a relatively uncommon occurence, Nedzu did actually enjoy driving.

"Slow down!"

Having a custom seat made for his diminutive frame, getting the pedals extended so he'd be able to reach them, all of it had been rather expensive.

"That was the curb!"

And, honestly, most of the time it just wasn't worth it to get his vehicle out of storage. Public transit in Tokyo was among the best in the world.

"I'm going to be sick..."

Still, it was nice sometimes to find an excuse to get into the Ratmobile and just hit the accelerator!

"Was that Cementoss? Did you just run over Cementoss?!"

"He dodged." Nedzu clicked his tongue, turning to glare at Yagi and his backseat driving. "He's a pillar of living concrete, Yagi. My car certainly wouldn't have survived impacting him."

Again. He'd just gotten the Ratmobile repaired. And at a discount!

Yagi moaned and closed his eyes, clutching on to the center panel and assist grip overhead.

Nedzu turned his eyes back to the road, a manic chuckle on his lips as he dodged and swerved. It was certainly no exercise wheel but it was almost as good!

Three near-accidents later and they arrived at the apartment complex in record speed!

Nedzu stepped out of his car feeling incredibly refreshed. Yagi stumbled out and began the unenviable process of revisiting his lunch. Nedzu was patient enough to let the man finish up before they got moving.

"Really, Yagi." Nedzu commented as they ascended the stairs. "I've seen you jumping all over the city. My driving can't be nearly so disorienting."

"When I do it?" Yagi grumbled, one hand pressed against the void in his gut. "I'm in control. What you did was controlled chaos."

"But it -is- controlled!" Nedzu beamed, enjoying Yagi's discomfort. The chimera schooled his features to something a bit less malicious as he reached up and pressed the button for the intercom to the Midoriya household.

"...Hello?" A voice crackled through the old speaker. A woman's voice, Nedzu was sure. Certain tones and inflections just did not come through well when digitized.

"Mrs.Midoriya? It's Nedzu. I believe you were trying to contact me in regards to an update on your situation?" As much as the animal enjoyed teasing Yagi, he was here on actual business. At least one part of which involved a child that had been...

Well. Nedzu was no stranger to empathy. Even if he didn't have much to share with most people. Sympathy, certainly, he had that in abundance.

"Oh!" The woman's voice sounded delighted before she opened the door. Midoriya Inko, now that Nedzu could see the woman... Well, the difference was truly astounding. Her eyes were still red and puffy from crying but the stress lines around her face had lightened dramatically. Her posture, especially, had shifted. She stood straighter now rather than being hunched in on herself. "I wasn't expecting you so soon! Please, come in!"

Yagi, in his reduced form, took his shoes off at the door. Nedzu did so as well, revealing a set of comparatively miniscule paws that were usually well hidden within his drastically oversized orange sneakers.

"Nho~o!" A voice hissed from deeper into the apartment. "Heroes, you have vanquished me!"

"Yeah!" A young girl's voice shouted. "Nobody can stop Clock Girl and her sidekick, uh...?"

"Mighty Boy!" A young boy's voice chimed in, full of energy and enthusiasm.

The sight Nedzu found when he came into the living room was, well, incredibly unusual. A small black dragon covered in brilliant white spots was laying splayed out in between a couple of children. Both of whom were holding All Might action figures triumphantly over the creature as though they were weapons.

The girl had long white hair pulled back in a loose pony-tail and a tiny little horn on one side of her head. She wore a set of bright red overalls and had an astoundingly brilliant smile on her face.

The boy, presumably Midoriya Izuku, was wearing a very oversized shirt and equally overlarge pair of shorts held on by belt that was tightened well past the last hole it originally had.

"This would be our intrepid young man, wouldn't it?" Nedzu asked, delight in his voice. He may not care much for humans as a whole but children? Everything that had been done to him, it hadn't been enough to twist him that far.

"Woah!" The boy dropped his action figure on the miniature dragon, eliciting a squeaky 'Oof' from it before he rushed over to the Principal of U.A. "It's- You're Nedzu! The High-Specs Hero!"

"I am!" Nedzu preened, pleased as punch to be recognized. He wasn't exactly a frontline hero, after all. "But am I a dog? A mouse? A bear?"

"Possibly." The little dragon rolled over and stood to its feet. "Maybe. And definitely not. Of course, the most important thing you are... Is Nedzu."

"Very astute, Alec!" Nedzu grinned, at least as much as his face could. It was a bit difficult with his instincts screaming about being in the room with a large predator but he'd gotten control over such reactions years ago. "And I'm sure that you can guess as to why I'm here!"

Behind him, Yagi had frozen solid. Nedzu half turned to look at him and saw that the Symbol of Peace had his eyes locked on young Izuku, a haunted and stricken look on his face.

Well, as much as Nedzu didn't entirely disagree with what the man had said to the boy... All Might most definitely needed to learn such vital things such as tact, or the appropriate time and place to have such a frank discussion.

"Absolutely." Alec agreed, nodding to the two of them as he sat up. He was roughly the size of a small dog, perhaps a corgi, and thus was actually smaller than Nedzu himself. "Unfortunately I don't currently have the funds to donate to your school. If you could take me off your mailing list...?"

"Well, that is terribly unfortunate." Nedzu agreed solemnly, his tone failing to match the sharp grin on his face. "Especially because it's wrong!"

"No." Alec disagreed, the occupants in the room watching the two in confusion. "I checked my balance this morning. After I get food and a few books for Eri, I'll be back to flat broke."

"Ah, Eri?" Nedzu turned to look at the girl. The poor dear looked like she was barely holding back something. Perhaps she needed to use the restroom? For whatever reason, young humans found it difficult to communicate that. "I do apologize. I'd not meant to ignore you, I simply find your- Oh, thank you, Mrs.Midoriya."

Whatever he'd intended to say to the small child was interrupted when Inko stepped in from the kitchenette, a cup of tea in her hands. It wasn't a particularly expensive brand, basic green tea, but it wasn't filled with artificial flavorings or sugar. Nedzu had found it reasonably acceptable.

Nedzu took a long sip as he watched Yagi whisper something to Inko. She looked between the children, then Alec, finally to himself and then nodded.

"Izuku?" She asked, her voice filled with false cheer. "Why don't we go to your room and try to find something that fits a bit better. We have guests, after all."

The boy in question? Nedzu noted that his eyes were perhaps a bit too sharp for a young child. He looked between his mother and All Might before silently nodding and following along after her. All Might took up the rear, one guilty glance over his shoulder to the rat told Nedzu that the man was getting himself ready to do something extraordinarily difficult.

The chimera enjoyed another long sip of his tea as he met Alec's eyes in a clear challenge. The miniature dragon met him unflinchingly.

"...If you don't mind my asking, would you be willing to explain your answer in regards to myself?" Nedzu finally settled on, reaching for what seemed to be the easiest method of getting an extended answer from the shapeshifter.

"Well, several of your dimensions could be considered comparable with a rat or mouse." And Alec didn't seem opposed to answering. Really, Nedzu knew that most people overlooked the simplest answer of just asking what they wanted to know. "However that doesn't match entirely with your physical characteristics. Especially the tail. That shows more signs of being feline in expression, honestly, especially with how mobile it is. As for bear... Anyone who's ever seen an actual bear would be able to look at you and say that you don't fit. Unless we're talking about Koala bears but I somehow doubt even your Quirk could make up for those smooth-brained idiots deficits."

The dragon sighed for a moment, catching its breath though it never broke eye contact.

"Of course, that's just an observation on what you are. None of these answer the infinitely more crucial question of -Who- you are." The dragon tilted its head slightly, like a cat or a wolf looking at something interesting. "And who you are... Is Nedzu."

If the chimera hadn't had one paw full, he would have been clapping! It was a more philosophical answer than he normally got, extolling that a person was made up of their mind and their choices rather than their body. He quite enjoyed the idea that his personhood was determined not by a quirk of genetics but rather his ability to make choices.

Sadly it was something that Japanese law had disagreed on. Something he'd had to fight tooth and claw just to be recognized as something more than an oddity or property.

"Uh... Excuse me?" Eri spoke up. The girl had sidled up beside Alec but her eyes had been locked on Nedzu the entire time.

"Of course!" Nedzu spoke up, his enthusiasm masking the myriad of other emotions brought on by the stimuli in the apartment.

The hesitation he'd noticed in the girl's movements, it was more than just the anxiety of seeing a stranger. Something Nedzu was certain All Might had noticed, perhaps helping to push the man into what he was currently doing.

The rat had much more sensitive ears than a human. He could hear the man tearfully apologizing to young Izuku in the other room.

"Can... Can I..." She paused briefly and looked to Alec, who nodded to her. "Can I pet you?"

Nedzu blinked, tearing his gaze away from Alec to look into the girl's own red ones. His tail started to gently wag behind him.

"Please, feel free!"

-----

Toshinori Yagi didn't know which part surprised him more.

Alec coming along quietly, not bothering to fight as he was placed in handcuffs certainly hadn't been expected. They'd also been expecting him to put up some kind of argument about the girl, Eri, but instead he'd been incredibly calm as they had a second squad car come and collect the child.

He'd just told the girl to be brave, that he'd be right nearby if she needed him.

Yagi had volunteered to join the officer in their vehicle as they transported Alec. It beat, by every single metric, riding with Nedzu again.

They could have done without the man talking in the back seat, though.

"Does the prevalence of reptillian heteromorphic Quirks cause anyone else to question things?" The man asked from his place in the backseat of the squad car as they waited in a traffic jam. "Not againt the people with the Quirks I mean. I mean more like the fact that there's a strong presence of people that are part snake. Does it impact their senses? Do they have stronger thermal detection than people without that kind of Quirk? That's not touching the whole milk issue. I mean, we have a lot of people that are a perfect fusion of Mammal and, well, everything else. How does that impact milk production?"

"Alec?" The officer, a member of the rank and file named Kozo Fuyutsuki. "I understand that your country has something called a Right to Remain Silent. Would you like to practice that?"

"I'm good." The small dragon in the backseat responded. "It's just... There's the whole 'Snilk' angle and it's been bothering me ever since I woke up. Would it have a different chemical composition? A different balance of fats and nutrients? Everyone just gave up on space research because of Quirks so I kinda don't trust anyone to have actually asked these questions and followed up on them."

"Alec, is there anything else that's on your mind?" All Might asked, refusing to admit that the question was now bothering him as well.

He'd ask Nedzu when they got to the precinct.

"Well, I tried to find a copy of the Little Mermaid for Eri but it's kind of a pain since it's more than four-hundred years old. I did find a lot of Gang Orca merchandise, though." Yagi's head impacted the window next to him. Once Alec got talking, he just wasn't shutting up! "And I may have crossed some wires and I realized something. If Gang Orca was a woman, he'd be a hot, mermaid waifu. The Rule Sixty-Three potential is strong with this one."

"...Goddamit." Kozo whispered, his head impacting his steering wheel while they were stopped at a deadlock. "I can see it. I can't unsee it!"

"Midnight must never learn of this." All Might agreed.

"Of course, I kind of feel bad for All Might." Alec continued as they crept forward. "He gets to see his own genderbender fantasy everytime he has to deal with the Number One from the U.S. of A. Star and Stripe. How do you think he feels about her being an ascended fangirl?"

"Proud." Yagi answered absentmindedly. "The imitation is a bit much but the girl used it as inspiration to grow strong and follow her dreams."

There was a long moment of silence as Kozo turned to look at the skinny blond man suspiciously but it was, of course, broken by the unending stream of consciousness from the back.

"Yeah, that tracks. All Might is a big enough ham, I'm sure he'd look past the cringe to focus on the actual person and what they'd accomplished." Yagi turned to look in the rearview mirror and he could see the dragon nodding to himself. "Her Quirk is pretty interesting, too. The ability to 'Create' whatever arbitrary rules she wants and have them enforced upon reality? I mean, I can do that too but that's not a Quirk."

"...What?" Yagi asked, his blue eyes narrowed sharply on the mirror, his gaze locked on Alec's own.

"What? The ham thing?" Alec asked, yawning widely before he continued. "I mean, seriously. All Might goes around shouting out things like 'Detroit Smash' which- Actually, if someone could go and actually smash Detroit? That'd be a kindness. The city still hasn't finished its groundworks and it's been, like, four-hundred and fifty years. Sorry, the ham thing, right. The dude is so over the top, he's dressed up in an American flag and he names his attacks after the various states and cities. I'd bet he's even got a 'Oklahoma Panhandle!' in there."

"...No, he doesn't." Yagi answered slowly. "I meant the whole-"

Whatever he was about to say was cut off when an explosion tore its way out of a nearby building, a flying villain barely escaping the flames as the Number Two Hero: Endeavor came roaring out after him.

"Oh, yay." Alec groaned behind them as All Might struggled with his seat belt. "It's everyone's favorite child abuser: Collateral Damage Barbecue."

"What?!" Yagi shouted as he froze for a moment, twisting to look at the dragon. The creature just continued to sit there, handcuffs in place and looking incredibly bored.

"No!" Yagi shook his head and unbuckled himself. "I want that answered later, though!"

"Can do." The dragon answered.

"Consider it a... Promise."

-----

Shota Aizawa did not appreciate being called by Nedzu. It didn't particularly matter -why- the rat was calling, he didn't want to deal with the menacing little sophist. Ever.

It made for a relatively difficult relationship between them, what with Nedzu being his boss on his day-job. Aizawa had the misfortune of being one of the menace's favorite targets.

Personally, Aizawa chalked that up to the fact that he refused to pay any special attention to Nedzu and that probably did something to the chimera's instincts. Like how alleycats adored anyone that tried to ignore them.

Getting called after school had let out and he'd sent the current batch of hero aspirants home? Aizawa had some choice words for the rodent, none of them good. He didn't like having his midday nap interrupted before he was set to return to his investigations on a missing persons case.

Of course, the little shit knew the right words to get Aizawa up and moving. 'Highly dangerous individual with unknown capabilities' wasn't that pressing for him. There were other people that could suppress dangerous Quirks. They were rare but Aizawa knew that at least two such people worked with the police. Golden Rule and Chatterbox could both do that particular job.

'A young child with an unknown but dangerous Quirk, recently extracted from an abusive environment' got him moving at double time, however.

Now, Aizawa was tired. Aizawa had been working all day trying to get his class to understand that there was more to Heroics than some thrice-damned popularity contest. He was exhausted and should not, under any circumstances, be put around children.

Thankfully, he'd found himself in a room with Nedzu and some tall, skinny blond man alongside a few other officers and heroes to watch a presentation.

"Quite frankly, we have more data than we know what to do with, some of it is contradictory and almost all of it paints a, frankly, fantastical picture." Nedzu stated, standing on the table at the front of the room.

Nedzu was enjoying this.

"Our current issue involves an individual of unknown age. Named 'Alec', he appears to have a dragon transformation quirk similar to, if not nearly identical, to Ryukyu." The lights dimmed as Nedzu manipulated a remote with both paws before an overhead projector kicked on. "This marks the second time that he's been held in police custody, though we're uncertain as to whether or not he can be held without extraneous and expensive countermeasures coming in to play."

Aizawa took a deep quaf of his coffee as Nedzu cycled through a series of photos and video stills. The huge dragon with midnight black scales and covered in twinkling stars was interesting. It didn't explain why Nedzu had called for him, though.

"I'm assuming the wings and claws aren't for show, are they?" A woman asked. She wore a loose red chinese dress with a claw-like hairpiece in her short blond hair.

"Well, the claws haven't seen any use so far but he has been caught on several cameras flying." Nedzu responded, fiddling with the remote to swap over to a slide of the suspect... Flying away from a police station.

This police station.

Aizawa's confidence could not possibly go any lower.

"Now, ideally none of you will actually be needed." And Aizawa was wrong. Nedzu -could- drop his confidence through the floor. "The suspect has proven surprisingly compliant. However Alec has a multitude of capabilities that we are aware of and no real knowledge as to how to interact with them..."

"Such as teleportation." An officer picked up where Nedzu had trailed off, the Quirked animal hopping off the table and making a beeline for the drinks. Coffee and tea. "Potentially possession, though that was a one-time case and he's made no mention of being the one to perform the act. Shapeshifting as well, though now that he's exited his host we also don't know if he retained that capability. He's also our sole suspect in a widescale use of... We're really not sure. More than one-hundred members of the leading Yakuza group are the victims of what's being termed 'Forceful material recomposition'."

"...What kind of Quirk does he have, exactly?" Midnight, the M-Rated hero asked. Her voice was absent of its usual enthusiasm. "The ability to be a fantasy character?"

"We have no idea!" Nedzu chirpped as he got back up on the table through strategic use of various office chairs. "If his claims are accurate, he hasn't got a Quirk! However, considering the wide array of capabilities he's shown we've requested the three of you specifically to counter his currently known abilities. Assuming you are able, of course."

"...And what does this have to do with a child in danger, Rat?" Aizawa finally asked, getting to the meat of the real issue.

"...Yes, well. Former danger, really." Which short-circuited the little nuisance and his word games quite nicely. The screen behind them shifted to show a small room with a child-sized bed. There were dried bloodstains on virtually everything, though a single large footprint in front of the door had been highlighted in blue. "For reasons yet to be determined, the suspect may have broken into the Yakuza Headquarter, petrified all involved individuals except for a sole child that was the focus of needless and wasteful experimentation and then disappeared. Without being caught on any of the on-site cameras."

A different man stood up and took the remote from Nedzu, the chimera happily handing it over so he could instead sit and watch. This man, wearing a rather bland business suit, stood out due to the odd coloration of his hair. A trio of bright yellow stripes that clashed noticeably with his dark green hair.

"I am Mirai Sasaki. Also known as the hero, Sir Nighteye. My agency was one of the many that were investigating the Yakuza branch known as the Shie Hassaikai. While it is true that the perpetrator of the attack on them was not clearly or directly observed on camera, that does not mean that clues to his presence were not left behind." The projector's image shifted as the man manipulated the controls, shifting to a split-screen image of an empty corridor. The brightness of both images changed dramatically until the image was nearly washed out before playing.

The details were impossible for Aizawa to really determine but there was a large, noticeable distortion that traveled down the corridor before turning out of sight.

"We're still working with experts to get the image quality improved." Nighteye admitted to the assembled group. "However we can at least determine, based on the footprint that was left behind and the general size and shape of this... Mostly invisible creature, that an individual matching Alec's former dimensions may have been directly involved in Vigilante activity."

"...Well, this isn't exactly something I can do much with." The Dragon Hero, Ryukyu admitted. "Aside from possibly fighting him in aerial combat? Assuming he wouldn't simply teleport away? I'm not entirely sure why I was called here on a priority alert."

"That was my doing, actually." Nedzu admitted to the woman. "I was hoping that you would be willing to assist from an observation booth and clarify Alec's body language during questioning for the interrogating officer. With the rarity of your quirk and the similarity between your two forms, we are hoping that you might help to offer clarity with his, ah, proclivity for mysterious statements."

"And you want me nearby to try and cancel and Quirks this vigilante might have." Aizawa sighed and rubbed at his tired eyes. He didn't need to see the rat nodding to him. "What about the child? Are they safe?"

"Yes." Nighteye answered, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "Safe, clean, well-fed and wearing new clothes. Though she is understandably anxious considering the bond she seems to have formed with the vigilante. We have a member of the local Social Care checking on her now."

"So. Potentially severe charges of Vigilantism, escaping police custody and... Are those it?" Aizawa had to ask, the details, while impressive, did not seem especially actionable.

"Yes, and the only one of those with actual evidence that we can act on is his escaping from police custody." The officer, who never did introduce himself, sighed in exasperation. "Given that it was done non-violently? And that he surrendered himself back into police custody? The courts are overburdened with actual cases of villainy. Unless we have something actionable it's just not worth our time or money to pursue this."

"Regardless of pursuing charges on Alec, there are some serious allegations that he's made that I want clarified." The tall, skeletal blond man that had been mostly silent finally spoke up. Aizawa felt a surprising amount of force in his presence. The man, for how slight he seemed, carried a kind of strength that pushed against Aizawa's exhaustion and forced him to straighten his spine.

"Of course, Yagi." And it even had Nedzu deferring to him politely. Aizawa knew what it meant when an animal curled its tail underneath of itself. "What do you think we need to follow up on?"

"He outright stated that Endeavor is abusing his children." The murmuring and whispering in the room went silent at this Yagi's words. "And he promised answers."

"...I see." Nedzu's ears were almost flat against his skull. Aizawa could see the small creature was struggling to control a hiss from escaping. "Yes, we'll be sure to ask him about that."

Aizawa stood up, ignoring the heavy atmosphere in the room. He didn't know what all was going to happen, no, but he did know one thing.

He was going to need more coffee.

 

[Mister Ficser]

-----

Detective Tsukauchi felt significantly more nervous, stepping into the interrogation room with the small dragon, than he did last time.

In no small part because he knew that, despite the creature's strangely small size, it was only here because it chose to be. The typical imbalance of power that was supposed to be present was skewed opposite to where it was supposed to be.

Alec was deathly still as the Detective sat down at the table across from it. The only things that moved were the neon yellow eyes, locked to his own.

"I'm glad you felt like joining us today, Alec." Tsukauchi started off soft, an easy approach to try and determine where the conversation could go. "Hopefully things will go a little smoother this time."

"Perhaps." The dragon agreed, though it didn't move its mouth. Tsukauchi felt more than a little unnerved at the ventriloquism. Was it another Quirk? "That really depends on what you want to know and what you choose to ask."

'He's not breathing.' A voice whispered into his ear, Nedzu.

The comment really didn't do much to soothe Tsukauchi's nerves. They already knew that Alec didn't conform to a human body structure. Now he didn't bother with normal physiological responses, either? Anyone other than him would find it impossible to get more out of the vigilante than he wanted to let them!

"Well, we'll try and keep this professional then." Tsukauchi didn't let his nerves get the better of him. Sure, he'd panicked last time around when the strange teenager had turned into a dragon the size of an anorexic horse but he just hadn't been expecting it. That was all. "What relationship do you have with one Midoriya Izuku?"

"Former possessor." Alec answered simply. "Unwilling, on my end. From what I could gather after the fact, the boy had taken the advice of his school idol and, ahem, 'Swan Dived' off the roof. I had the misfortune of waking up in a body that seemed quite incapable of sustaining life."

All true. Very damningly true. Tsukauchi felt his mouth go dry at the amount of work that one statement would force on the precinct.

A suicide wasn't something that could just be swept under the rug. Even if the victim did get better.

"Which you immediately repaired." Tsukauchi stated. That was the only obvious case of public Quirk usage and didn't really fall under the umbrella of what they would prosecute.

The laws of Japan were very open-ended for the sake of allowing the police more freedom in determining what was worth pursuing. Public Quirk Usage, while technically illegal across the board, really meant something closer to 'Using your Quirk to cause a public disturbance'.

"Well, let's move on a bit. There's no point in reviewing what immediately followed. We have more than enough footage, witness statements and your own statement for that." It would just waste time. For everyone here. "Why did you escape from custody? I'm reasonably sure that, if your requests could be met, we would have been quite willing to assist you in vacating Midoriya's body."

"In what timeframe?" The dragon asked him in response. "Acting on my own, I managed to perform all of the needed actions and pre-requisites inside of two weeks. I'm well aware that it can take at least that long just for a letter to be written that shows appropriate respect to the recipient."

Also true. Alec hadn't been willing to wait and he refused to play to their tune.

"Beyond that? I have no interest in offering your government any leverage over myself." The dragon finally tilted its head, turning to glare at a one-way mirror. "After all, your HSPC is all-too willing to make a child disappear and then try and force them into becoming an 'ideal' hero. How is Hawks doing these days, by the way?"

Tsukauchi put down his pen and pad. He swallowed dryly as he looked at the dragon, its expression unchanged as it turned once more to look upon him with those cold, angry eyes.

"I... Don't believe that is relevant to this line of questioning." Tsukauchi felt he might have taken a jump into a very, very deep pond.

"Oh? With Lady Nagant acting as their professional assassin, I find it quite relevant." Tsukauchi wished the dragon was lying. It felt like every word out of its... Wherever they were coming from, every word was another accusation that would cause some very, very big problems. "Who watches the watchmen, officer? With nobody to keep her honest? Why would you expect 'Madam President' to bother with such trivialities?"

Tsukauchi turned to look at the mirror, a helpless look on his face. Alec was saying these truths in front of Nedzu. In front of All Might!

"Well..." The dragon finally shifted, twisting its head back and forth. "She's still better than her predecessor, at least. Less murderous, in general."

"...You understand that these are all very serious accusations, right?" Tsukauchi believed in justice. He had to!

...But he suddenly had a lot of doubts creeping in.

"In the shadow of Peace? Corruption festers." Which wasn't a yes or no answer but it was an answer none the less.

'Ryukyu says he's amused. Keep him talking. Yagi wants answers about Endeavor.' Nedzu spoke into Tsukauchi's earpiece, grounding him for a moment.

"I will need you to expand on that. But let's go back to a different accusation you've made." Tsukauchi picked his pen and pad back up, ignoring the trembling in his fingers. "You claimed that Endeavor is abusing his children. As the Number Two Hero, such an accusation is incredibly volatile. You do understand this, correct?"

He did not appreciate the way the creature's eyes were locked upon him. The dragon seemed to be pitying him...

"Endeavor. Always striving to be the best, to be number one." The dragon yawned, wicked teeth on full display. "And if he can't reach it? He'll breed it. He went and bought himself a lovely little woman. Mentally broke her, bit by bit by bit and then sent her away once he finally produced a child that fit his desires."

There was a loud 'Thud!' in the other room but the dragon never looked away from Naomasa's eyes.

"Todoroki Touya? The boy with flames that could surpass his father? Utterly worthless to Endeavor without the ability to resist them. Lost, forgotten, nobody cares to remember the child Endeavor pushed to burn himself to near-death in his pursuit of All Might's ranking." The dragon couldn't grin, it lacked the facial muscles to do so. Still, Naomasa felt like Alec was playing with him. With the others. "At least he has a spare. It's a shame that poor Todoroki Shoto just doesn't have that manic fervor his older brother did. It's so hard to create another zealot when he just doesn't believe in you, you know?"

The dragon finally leaned forward, all pretenses of amusement absent from the ghostly voice in the room. Its eyes were full of unbridled fury, they burned with an inner light.

"Sshoto knowss better than to puush too hard, however." The dragon's mouth moved as it finally spoke. Its words came out as a sibilant hiss, a stark contrast to the ease it spoke with earlier. "Affter all, if he doessn't obey? Endeavor can haff poor Rei ssent ssomewhere elsse. Ssomewhere worsse."

Naomasa Tsukauchi clutched the table in front of him with both hands. Alec's voice, his every word.

Every Truth.

He nearly jumped out of his seat when he heard the door to the next room over slam shut and heavy footsteps rip down the hall.

"You may want to do something about that." Alec cautioned as he leaned back into his seat. At least as best he could as a quadruped.

"At leasst, if you want to haff something of Endeavor to collect when All Might gets done with him."

-----

"Well now..." Nedzu hadn't reacted nearly as strongly as All Might but he certainly was not a happy little experiment. Of course, he was a bit more aware of the nuance in what was being said compared to what was being heard.

Alec had implied that Endeavor was abusing his family. Abuse, however, could take on many forms. From simple neglect to behavioral molding by intentional use of rewards and punishments. Even pushing too hard in training was a form of abuse, though often not an intentional one.

The strong struggled to understand the weak.

Endeavor, Enji, was an incredibly prideful man. Implying that he'd used his wife for the sake of producing powerful offspring was... Not truly surprising. Quirk Marriages had been mostly disproven as a fruitless effort. Mostly.

When they succeeded? The results were often incredible. Also devestating, typically, but still incredible.

"Of course, it's not like Touya's a harmless little waif in the whole mess." Alec continued in the other room. Incredibly still, immobile since his outburst. "The psycho woke up from his coma and decided he liked the smell of burning people. If you have any cases of people burned down to the bone? That's probably him. Infection will eventually get the lunatic, he likes stapling his own roasted skin back on to himself, but he'll rack up a body count first. Asshole goes by the name 'Dabi' these days."

"Oh, gods..." Ryukyu whimpered in her seat nearby. It had been less useful than Nedzu had expected, having her here. Whatever Alec was, he unsettled her severely. "If he's right? I've had three cases like that show up on my patrols."

"If he's right." Aizawa countered. "Truth detector quirks only work on what the target believes to be true. It's entirely possible that he's wrong and simply believes otherwise."

"Correct, Eraserhead." Nedzu didn't bother attempting to mimic a grin. "However, even if he is wrong? This is still a lead that may be worth investigating. Assuming he is correct, Todoroki Touya is murdering people whilst immolating himself. Assuming he is partially correct, Todoroki Touya is severely injured and in drastic need of medical attention. If he's wrong... Well, then we investigate and disprove him!"

"Naomasa." Nedzu spoke into the microphone connected wirelessly to the earbud the detective wore. "Ask him if he has any other information that may be pertinent to ongoing cases."

"Alec." The detective sighed deeply as he leaned forward on screen, attempting to get the dragon to relax by using his body language to do so first. Mirroring, such a useful method of manipulation... On humans. "That's... Potentially very helpful. You wouldn't happen to know of any other criminals or villains that are currently active, do you?"

"A few, yes." The small black dragon tilted its head slightly, one of its eyes locking on Nedzu briefly and blinking before refocusing on the detective. "I suppose I'll let you pick the next one. Himiko Toga, the Bloodstarved Princess? Re-Destro of Detnerat? Or Stendhall and his idiotic crusade?"

"Stendhall?" Naomasa asked before Nedzu had a chance to direct him towards Detnerat.

"Ah, Stain." And Alec, already the center of this spectacle, now had Aizawa's full attention. "The man is an idiot, but the worst kind. He's smart enough to assemble a bit of the picture and too stupid to use it effectively. Still, his manifesto isn't entirely wrong. Incredibly premature, yes, but not wrong. His Quirk, which you'll likely find most useful, is to paralyze an individual for a short amount of time if he ingests their blood. The time varies by blood type, not something you'll find incredibly useful, however. His pattern, assuming you haven't deduced it already, is three kills and then moving on to another area."

"That..." Tsukauchi struggled to speak in the other room, swallowing loud enough to be heard through the microphone. "That's incredibly helpful! Why didn't you come forward sooner?!"

"This is the first free day I've had in two weeks." The dragon groused. "As you might recall, I've been rather busy."

"I... Yes, I'm sorry." Nedzu shook his head as Naomasa apologized. The man wasn't in control of the conversation, he was following the breadcrumbs Alec had offered him. "I'm unfamiliar with Himiko Toga. Why do you think we would like to know about her?"

"Ah, the poor girl. Her Quirk demands that she consume blood and it has suitably warped her mind to encourage and reward the act. At least, according to the information that I have." Nedzu blinked at the admission. That was the first time Alec had admitted to uncertainty.

"That doesn't sound good..." Midnight said as she leaned forward, her tone serious. Nedzu silently agreed with her.

"While she's a terrible actor, her Quirk is none-the-less an amazing tool for infiltration. Like Stain, she needs to consume blood. Unlike him, her Quirk allows her to assume the form of whomever's blood she drank." Alec... Deflated in his seat. "Her first victim, assuming he was actually seriously harmed, was a classmate of hers. A boy she had a crush on. She came across him after he'd been beaten bloody and she had something of a psychotic episode. Stuck a straw right into him and tried to fill that hole she'd been trying to ignore for so, so long. All things considered, the boy was probably fine. Straws don't make for very good weapons, after all."

The dragon leaned forward again. His jaw opened and closed a few times before he simply closed his eyes and audibly sighed. "Out of everyone I tell you about today, officer? Every villain or criminal you learn about, every dirty little secret I share? Toga is the one you need to do something about."

"She... She's that dangerous?" Naomasa asked, hesitation in his voice.

"...That idiot." Midnight whispered, her face in her hands. Beside her, Aizawa was leaning forward on the edge of his seat.

"Dangerous?" Alec asked, audibly incredulous. His tail waved dangerously behind him in long, angry arcs. "She's a homeless teenage girl with a fragile psyche and an incredibly versatile Quirk! Of course she can be dangerous! And that is not, and never was, the point!"

"Sshe. Nheeds. Help." The hissing rasp of his voice crackled through the speakers, distorting painfully and squealing with feedback. Nedzu clutched his sensitive ears in pain, just like the last time the dragon had actually spoken.

This time, he noticed more. It felt like there were more words hidden within what he'd said. The lights, already dim, lost just a bit of color.

"...Fascinating." Nighteye whispered from his spot at the back of the small room. "It's just like the Yakuza compound. Is it an artifact of his voice? Or something else?"

"Naomasa." Nedzu spoke into his microphone. "We need time to analyze the information he's provided and begin making a plan of action. After getting whatever information he has on this... Re-Destro? Unless you feel like charging him with anything, it may be best to release him. I'd like to schedule a private interview on another, more sensitive matter."

"You're right." Naomasa exhaled heavily through his nose, matching the dragon's glare with his own shaking gaze. "With everything else you've told me, it's hard to remember sometimes that it's my job to help. Why don't you tell me about Re-Destro and we'll get you sorted out and sent home?"

"Fine." The dragon went back to using that strange ventriloquism trick of his. "Fine, fair enough. Re-Destro. Yotsubashi Rikiya, descendant of the first Destro. Head of the Meta Liberation Army. This man can somehow run a successful business in Detnerat but can't quite grasp that those powerful Quirks that his company makes a lot of gear to suppress might be, somehow, dangerous. He wants everyone to be free to use their Meta Ability without restrictions like common sense or some awareness of things like collateral damage."

"...I find that hard to believe." Midnight muttered quietly.

"I find that I don't care about your beliefs." Alec answered from the other room.

The hushed conversation between Aizawa and Mirai went dead silent.

"Re-Destro. Quirk: Stress. This asshole is at his strongest whilst in the middle of a stroke or a heart attack. At full power, he's able to erase entire city blocks." Alec turned his head to glare through the mirrored glass. Nedzu felt ice fill his veins as those yellow eyes glared into his own. "The disaffected? The downtrodden? All those villianous Quirks that people are so quick to mock, like Erasure? All those and more would flock to his banner."

"Of course, you don't have to take my word for it." The dragon couldn't grin, it lacked the facial features to do so. Still, Nedzu could tell by its body language, the arch of its shoulders, the flexion of its claws... There was menace in that voice, malice in its form.

"Kizuki Chitose would be all too willing to induct you as members, after all."

-----

Yagi, contrary to Alec's expectations, did not dash off to beat the ever living hell out of Endeavor and drag him in to the police. That entire matter would be left to the police, investigating, asking questions, searching for whatever happened to Touya and unraveling the accusation that Enji had... Bought... His wife.

All Might did need to calm down, however. The heavy-handed accusations placed on the shoulders of Endeavor were one thing- The man was surly and difficult on a good day. No, what bothered him most was the realization that, everything Yagi had fought for, everything he had won... Someone else had corrupted. Perverted.

In the Shadow of Peace

Alec couldn't have been any more obvious if he'd outright yelled at All Might inside the interrogation room.

He didn't want to believe it. Part of him couldn't believe it.

Sitting on a park bench, his fists clenching and unclenching, tearing at his loose, baggy pants in a white-knuckled grip... Japan was a better place, a happier place, than it had been a decade past. All For One's rule from the shadows had left the country in a perpetual undercurrent of fear. Tension. People may not have understood what was going on or who was doing it, but everyone had known that they weren't safe.

Alec's damning accusations in mind, it didn't stop Yagi from looking at the people in the park. Children were playing, flowers were blooming, birds were singing... Things were better now, weren't they?

He didn't know. Had he traded one tyrant for another? Built the kingdom and left it undefended for a different kind of evil to take root?

"Have you been here this entire time?" A man asked him. A tall westerner with brown hair and a good bit of heft to him. A strongman, to Yagi's well trained eye. Holding his hand was a little girl with white hair and a single horn coming fron the right side of her forehead.

...Eri?

"Alec?" Yagi asked in confusion as the man sat down next to him. The westerner didn't answer immediately, instead he patted the seat next to him and waited for Eri to hop up.

"I was looking around after they let me go, checking out a few gigs I saw in the paper. You haven't been stuck here in your head ever since you ran off, have you?" Alec asked him.

Yagi leaned back and closed his eyes, unsure how to answer. Unsure if he should.

"...Great." Alec continued in Yagi's silence. "I broke him. Eri? What do you want to eat today?"

"Ramen!" The girl shouted happily. "With pork, and egg, and mushrooms, and leeks..."

Yagi listened to the girl list off pretty much every possible item that went into a bowl of ramen. And several that didn't.

Chocolate? In ramen? It almost made him miss being young again.

"Al... Right. And sent." Alec said as he got up. Yagi could feel from the vibrations in the bench that he'd likely picked Eri up as well. "Come on, Yagi. We're going to go get something to eat and you and I? We need to have a talk."

"What?" The skeletal blond asked, opening his brilliant blue eyes to look at the man/dragon. "About what?"

"A lot of things, I guess." The man hadn't just pulled Eri off of the bench. He'd picked her up and she was sitting on his shoulders, leaning over his head! "Your Quirk. The past wielders. A warning for the future wielders- You can share as much with Nedzu as you like but I feel like this should be given to you to decide on."

"...What's the point to all of this?" Yagi asked after getting to his feet. "What are you getting out of this?"

"I already got what I wanted." The American admitted as they got moving. "Now? I'm looking for some stable work so I can feed the bottomless pit up here."

He reached up and poked the girl in the side causing her to squirm and giggle.

"As for you, True Man and Doctor I Am Weasel? I'm not opposed to helping out and answering questions, I'm really not. I just refuse to do things for free." All Might didn't get the Weasel reference but he assumed it meant Nedzu.

"Mercenary." All Might grumbled as he followed along behind Alec, his glare missing any heat.

"To a degree." Alec agreed. "I'm not demanding anything up front, there's no fee or anything for today. Going forward, though... Well, I've got to put food on the table and a roof over my head."

Yagi sighed as he continued to follow the man and the child he'd... Picked up? Yagi knew she hadn't been adopted.

It didn't take long for them to reach the resatuarant. A small place called Ichiran, a small noodle shop that Yagi knew tended to have a bit of a queue around meal times. They'd arrived a bit after the dinner rush so there wasn't a line.

Just two other people there with green hair. A short, plump woman and a skinny, gangly child.

Midoriya Inko and her son, Izuku. The boy was wearing clothes that fit much better now, though it looked like they'd been hemmed in rather than newly bought.

Yagi felt something cold settle into the newly regrown portions of his stomach. A feeling that only grew more intense as everyone selected their orders on a machine and took the printed cards inside. On one side of the restaurant, each booth was private and only really opened into the kitchen. The opposite side had larger booths meant for couples or families.

The Symbol of Peace had no idea what it meant when Alec pulled him over to share the booth with him and Eri. Izuku and his mother took up the booth next to them, though.

"So, what do you want to know first?" Alec asked him after the staff took their cards to begin filling their orders.

"Why did you wake up in my body?" Izuku asked from the next booth over.

"Because my patron goddess has a sick sense of humor." Alec fired right back.

"...My Quirk." Yagi mumbled, clutching on to a tiny glass filled with cold water. "What do you know about my Quirk?"

"Some hard facts, Mister Eight. Some speculation." Alec himself had a glass of the same. The restaurant was rather convenient in that it offered an individual tap for every booth. "Number One was Shigaraki Yoichi, the faceless halfwit's brother. His Meta Ability was to pass on his Meta Ability, which would grow with every host it found itself in. Personally, I think it's a parasite."

"Woah!" Izuku shouted from the booth next to them. Yagi shot Alec a concerned glance before leaning back and looking at the excited young man. "I've never heard of a Quirk that could do that!"

"...Should he be here for this?" Yagi whispered, more than a little uncomfortable that his secret was being shared with a child in such a way. Two, assuming Alec hadn't already told Eri about it.

"He's going to need protection after being de-aged and re-alived." Alec responded, his voice low. "This better ensure that you see to it."

Yagi felt like those words had hit him as hard as his own teacher, Gran Torino, would have.

"In and of itself, Inheritance isn't an impressive ability. When the faceless halfwit decided to feed it a power stockpiler, it got a bit more useful. When Number Four, the scaredy cat went and hid in the woods so he could feed it for a few decades... Well, you've seen the results in the mirror." Yagi shakily took a sip of his water as Alec continued talking. He wanted to know how the man knew such things but he was afraid Alec may stop if he was interrupted. "It's got a bit of each past wielder attached to it and, when it reaches Singularity, it'll actively let the wielder call upon them. If you've ever noticed that you have more airtime than you should, or wondered where the little bits of smoke come from when you change forms? That's from the other Quirks that One For All has taken into itself."

Alec stopped talking for a moment when the chef opened the little window at the front of the booth and started handing in the ramen bowls. There was a round of 'Itadakimasu' from everyone that the American struggled to imitate a half second out of sync.

"Unfortunately, as you might know if you ran into any of Sensei's labs, a lot of quirks don't play together very well." All Might separated his chopsticks as Alec continued. Simultaneously disgusted by what he remembered and ravenously hungry at the thought of eating real ramen after half a decade without a stomach. "Your Quirk is extremely incompatable. If you give it to someone that already has a Quirk, it'll eat them alive inside of twenty years. Probably less, now."

The explanation of things that Yagi had sometimes wondered about, usually as he was locked up in recovery, came to a pleasant halt as the group enjoyed their food. And it was some very, very good food.

"You know, on a lighter topic?" Alec spoke up, drawing Yagi's eye. He could also see Inko leaning back and looking over. "I get the need for heroes and all, I really do... But what about Super-Powered Nursing Homes?"

"...What?" Izuku asked, leaning even further back so he could look around his mom. "Why would we need those?"

"Well, aside from the dozen or so known immortality Quirks? People are getting older every day. All Might's generation alone had something like a fifty-percent rate of Quirked individuals. Those don't just go away because someone gets old." All Might chewed on a mushroom as he thought on the dragon's words. "Imagine someone like Gran Torino, he was this hero from thirty years ago? He's got this Quirk that can shoot out concentrated jets of air from his feet and he uses it for mobility. Can you imagine trying to keep him in a normal elderly care facility once he gets dementia? Or just imagine anyone with a Quirk that activates automatically in defense. They have a heart attack and that goes off, things would get pretty dicey pretty fast."

...Somehow, the idea of growing old had just become even more terrifying for Yagi than it already had been.

"Alec?" The pleasant, lovely little woman in the booth next to them asked.

"Yes, Inko?"

"I'd prefer my dinner not come complete with a fresh set of nightmares."

"...Sorry, Inko."

"On a completely different matter!" Yagi burst out, startling several of the other patrons and causing Eri to giggle. "Why did you refer to Nedzu as, uh, 'I Am Weasel'?"

"Multiple reasons, really." Alec admitted as he put down his own chopsticks. "One, I'm pretty sure that he's just being manipulative with his 'Rat, Dog, Bear' question. It tricks someone into thinking only of those things and trying to twist them to fit as an answer. It's a bit of a dirty trick."

Yagi nodded at that, it sounded exactly like Nedzu.

"Two, I'm not sure what he is but you might've heard me mention the tail? He might be some kind of ferret. Maybe a different weasel. I never kept any as pets so I can't be sure." The man shrugged under Yagi's curious gaze. "Finally, I Am Weasel was this talking cartoon weasel on a cartoon back in the nineteen nineties. He was supposed to be smarter than everybody else and had a hard time not showing off. I remember watching some of those back when they came out."

Well, with that context, things made a lot more sense.

Except no, they really didn't.

"You're over four hundred years old?!" Yagi, Inko and Izuku shouted altogether.

-----

The Source Wall.

The weeks that Alec spent after having Eri restore Izuku were spent doing a lot of things. Getting a legal-ish identity proved easier than he'd expected. Between the government being less than twenty years old and Quirks doing all kinds of crazy things, he'd literally been able to find a form that stated he was brought into existence through unusual or otherwise impossible means.

It was probably meant for those rare Quirks that would eventually create a secondary sophont being, such as Dark Shadow, the Quirk of the bird-headed boy named Fumikage Tokoyami.

Getting Eri registered with the government didn't sit well with him, no, but he also wanted to get her sent to school. It would give her something to do, push her to interact with other people and give him about ten hours out of the day to focus on other tasks.

Did it carry a risk? Sure. But he refused to let fear control him, refused to sequester her away like a rare book in his hoard. It wouldn't be right or fair to deny her the company of her peers because he was afraid.

It gave him time to review what he had left and what he needed to do going forward.

He'd lost his inventory, which was an incredible inconvenience. He still had his armory but his Mageknight Armor, Ultima Weapon and Abyssal Spear were missing. His rings and earrings were severely slagged but at least he'd been able to recall them. The only piece of his armor left had been the right gauntlet with the psypher in it and that had been nearly shattered.

Those he could repair.

His pendant, made of Darksteel, seemed completely untouched.

He had to wonder if whatever had happened... He'd always avoided going for an absolute defense because it would encourage his foes to try and find unique and novel ways of harming him. A strong defense and people like Zod would just try and punch harder. An impervious defense got them thinking of crazy things like dragging someone into a star or something.

With half of his equipment missing, he gone on to check his vehicles. Those were intact for the most part except for the Incorruptus which was, impossibly, missing its right arm at the bicep. A strangely familiar injury.

He'd made the thing out of Darksteel. It was -Conceptually- indestructable! Whatever the hell had happened, he really wished he knew.

Repairing it was slow going. It was re-growing the arm because of Mending but without his personal intervention that looked like it could take months.

Alec swallowed dryly as he thought about that. He'd gotten up to something that could break Darksteel. He wasn't even sure if his Ultima could do that- Something he was going to have to test, eventually- and he didn't know what it was. It was entirely possible that he'd simply been killed by whatever happened as a freak accident but... He would have had contingencies in place. He knew he'd made plans, spells and perks that would preserve just a fraction of his life and let him recover.

Though, some of those could have failed if he was in a different plane from the one he'd placed some of those contingencies.

Or... All of that had just been bypassed because Gaia wanted to throw him at this world? He wouldn't put it past Terra. He just wished he knew what was going on. It seemed like a solid chunk of his Perks were missing, any of the spells or skills he hadn't put any real effort into, things he just didn't remember, were out of reach. At least his laptop was in his home, he could print off copies of the things he'd scanned into it.

The System had been useful in that regard, at least. It let him access things he'd studied and learned, even if he'd forgotten them.

His Dragon perks remained. The spellboost effects, he'd learned how to apply by himself. He couldn't stack them, that required the System but he could still twist his spells with one effect at a time. He couldn't measure it but the amount of magic he had was genuinely ridiculous so he assumed the stat boosting perks from eating Materia remained.

It seemed as though all of the external reality warping effects were gone. Even the item refunding/duplicating ones.

All in all, it was incredibly inconvenient. Workable, though.

Getting back home, though... Getting back to Yuffie, Jinx, Kary and his familiars...

Getting through the Source Wall wasn't going to work. Smarter people than him, such as Victor Von Doom, had been trapped in it. Even world destroying entities such as Unicron were unable to penetrate the wall, becoming part of it instead.

That left going around it. None of the routes that he knew of were safe, especially as reduced as he was. The simplest option he could think of was just Gating into Hell and then physically traversing the infinite abyss until he'd literally walked past where the Source Wall would be, then Gating back home.

He'd thought about trying to get into the Dreaming but according to Dee, the Endless weren't quite as All-Powerful beyond the Source Wall as most believed. If the Sandman's domain wasn't as omnipresent then that meant he'd have to actually find it which...

Well, attempting that was a good way to end up in the dreams of dead gods. Wish could work to bypass that and get into the actual Dreaming, probably, assuming that there weren't Other things in between. Things that could feel him traversing the infinite Blind Eternities between realities, things that could follow him. Dragging one of those into a coherent reality...

Well, Alec had heard about what happened when a reality tried to contain something that was -literally- impossible. That reality dissolving back into the foam of the multiverse was a comparable good end to such an event.

He sighed quietly as he finished washing Reis's food bowl. The dust on it had been bothering him. He missed her. He missed Ash. Terribly.

But he was glad that they hadn't been in the Demi-plane when whatever happened, happened. He didn't know what he would've done if he'd found their dessicated remains somewhere, starved to death. The guilt alone... He wouldn't have been able to Ressurect them, not after failing them like that.

He was stuck here. Stuck in a world that had warred against common sense and won. At least so long as he wasn't able to come up with a genuinely better option. Or just nut up and invade Hell.

"What am I supposed to be doing, Terra?" Alec mumbled, scrubbing away at the clean glasses in his hands. "At least give me some kind of idea what you want me to accomplish."

Was he supposed to teach Izuku how to not be the kind of idiot that would let an omnicidal half-wit murder his friends and allies so the kid could stand high on a moral high-ground made of corpses because, at the very least, he'd fought to save the split personality of an abused child inside of Shigaraki Tomura?

He'd ripped Eri away from her abusers. Turned them all to stone, left them as a monument so that others could see that they weren't safe. That there were bigger, meaner monsters out there.

"Am I supposed to put down All for One?" He asked the empty house. "Put a bullet through his scientist? Expose the commission?"

"Terra?" He begged, knowing he'd get no answer.

"What am I supposed to do...?"

-----



G: Well, I managed to Ping his system before he got out of range again. It's a corrupted mess. Nothing is hooked in anywhere, I barely managed to get a current stat sheet.

K: Were you able to message him?

G: Nothing went through. I can't tell if that's broken or he just has no access.

J: How the Hell did this happen? I thought you were a top administrator?

G: I am! Here. Over there? She's one of three with Creation level access to a solid chunk of the multiverse.

J: ...Is there anything we can do?

G: I am still able to send in update patches to his System. It's not much, anything too big might get her to block those off, but it is something. I don't think I can repair it, though. Not from here.

K: Can we send him anything? If the Messaging system is broken, can we send an actual letter? Some kind of note?

G: Not possible. The inventory has been completely unhooked. I barely managed to find where it was stored. That thing had been dropping toad statues throughout dozens of different worlds before I found it and closed it.

R: What about me?

G: What? What about you? I can't send you. I can't send anyone!

R: No, I get that... But one of the things he can do, one of the spells he should be able to do, he's eventually going to try and cast Find Familiar.

G: ...I could, maybe, possibly, fit you into an update patch on his system. You know, though, that you won't be awake or alive if I do this, right? You'll be waiting in stasis until he tries calling for you.

R: I know. Even if he never figures it out, it's a chance. It's more than we have right now. Besides, even if he won't do it himself... I know Jinx will eventually find a way to get to him. I trust her.

G: ...If you're sure. This, well, this is going to hurt. A lot.

R: I know. Please, be quick. Otherwise Ash will try and get involved. I wouldn't put her through this. Yuffie needs her.

-----

Izuku had honestly expected it to take longer than just a few weeks before he could go back to school. Between that and the time he'd been... Gone... He'd lost a month.

(Moments where his body was moving without his will. Words slipping from his mouth that he'd never spoken. A puppet. A meatsuit. An invisibility cloak. Then dropping deep into something like sleep and the feeling of flight. Power. Rage and Despair.)

But he'd gained a lot of things to compensate.

Sometimes, Alec would bring Eri over and offer his mom some money to watch the girl. She was so shy to begin with. Izuku didn't really know what to do about that. What he could do for her.

Talking with her didn't accomplish much. Eri would nod, shake her head or hum but she didn't talk back to him. Offering her snacks, while appreciated, would just see her take whatever he'd given her and make it disappear into a pocket.

They finally found some common ground on her third stay. He'd put on some cartoon instead of the news covering some crazy guy with a Blue Fire Quirk (So cool!) getting arrested and Eri had perked right up. It wasn't anything amazing, some edutainment show for little kids but she'd been transfixed.

Izuku was a little bit old for it, really, but he'd caught a few episodes when the shows would change and he was too busy with homework to change the channel.

In the end credits they had a little animated duck that was waddling about, looking like it was trying to dance. It was supposed to get little kids to get up and be active, make them feel like they were joining an activity and having fun.

Eri had gotten up from her seat and made some motions like she was trying to remember how to do things before she'd looked at Izuku and then nervously sat back down.

If she felt anxious... Well, Izuku was used to feeling anxious, too. His was usually spiked by a screeching pomeranian with anger issues and a habit for verbal abuse.

Izuku had gotten up and flailed about in a manner that reasonably approximated the duck on screen and gotten the first laugh out of Eri that he'd ever heard.

The subtle tension that had filled the apartment slowly faded after that. Bit by bit, day by day.

In between that, Izuku had needed to go and see doctors. And Quirk specialists. They'd looked him over with machines he didn't know the names of. Then they'd looked over his mom because they had to make sure that Izuku wasn't some doppelganger with some kind of manipulation Quirk.

They'd wanted to look at Eri, too, but the sheer weight that Alec could fit into the word 'No' was surprising. One of them had tried to make an argument about a public safety law that somehow gave him the right to examine Eri's Quirk without Alec's permission.

Izuku still felt the chill that had filled that room. Alec, rather than yelling or arguing, simply snapped his fingers, picked up Eri and left. Completely ignoring the doctor that was yelling at him to come back.

Apparantly, legal rights only mean something when someone else is willing to respect them.

The Quirkless young(er) man adjusted his backpack, a new one purchased with the babysitting money from Eri since his was probably still on the roof where he'd jumped and walked into the gates of Aldera Middle School.

There was a palpable aura of tension in the building. The students were talking to each other in hushed whispers and looking around nervously. More than a few eyes lingered on him with naked curiosity.

"Who the hell are... Deku?" And that was Kacchan. One of the most popular students in school, a teen that Izuku looked up to.

Primarily because he was significantly taller than Izuku, reduced as he was to the form of an eight year old.

"Hey, Katsuki." Izuku smiled and waved. The flutter of nervous energy that he'd been expecting was absent. He was still anxious but it was just the normal amount.

Bakugo Katsuki just... Wasn't that important. Not compared to what Izuku had Seen.

"...The hell happened to you?" Katsuki had spiky blond hair and small, red eyes. His Quirk, Explosion, turned his sweat into a compound that was similar in effect to Nitro-Glycerin.

It, like its wielder, was incredibly unstable. Izuku wondered, idly, just how it was that his name so perfectly encapsulated his Quirk and Personality given that his parents shouldn't have known who and what he'd become.

"A few things." Izuku admitted as his eyes slid over to Katsuki's cronies. Even among the unusual Quirks present among his classmates, those two were just... Underwhelming. One could extend his eyes beyond their sockets, but only by about ten or so centimeters. The other had wings that allowed him to fly but he didn't have the stamina to do anything with it.

There was a red-headed girl in their class that could literally turn into a living flame. One boy, his head was a giant wooden chisel. Even the boy with the long nose would have been of more use than Eyeballs, he could afford to lose a bit of what his Quirk exxagerated!

"I took some advice, had an odd adventure." Izuku continued, watching as Katsuki rubbed his fingers together and sparks lit up in his hand. Once upon a time, that had been a nervous habit for the blond. Now it was a habit that made people nervous.

"Tch." Katsuki clicked his tongue in irritation. Which may have meant something if the boy had more emotions than 'Irritated' and 'Angry'. "I doubt a deku like you actually did anything. Or did your Quirk come in? Is that why you look like a midget?"

"No, no." Izuku tilted his head to the side slightly and smiled. Wide and fake, showing off all of his teeth. Katsuki huffed, the only way he would admit to being unnerved.

Izuku spent a lot of his time watching people. Watching Alec had shown him how, even if you lacked natural social skills, at least some of them could still be learned.

"You see, I took your advice." Izuku was glaring directly at the spot in between Katsuki's eyes. It was less uncomfortable than actually meeting his gaze. "I took a swan dive off of a roof."

Wings and Eyeballs shared a very uncomfortable glance between them. Katsuki, meanwhile, had gone very, very pale.

"I didn't find a Quirk on the other side, though." Alec... Absolutely did not count as a Quirk. "So I came back. I think I might have overshot things a bit, though."

"You...!" Katsuki looked sick, his eyes wide and his pupils shrunken into tiny dots. "Stop messing with-"

"Everyone, settle down!" The class representative shouted from the front of the class, cutting Katsuki off mid-rant. "Now, altogether- Rise, bow, sit!"

Izuku grinned as he adjusted his desk back into the way he liked it while the teacher droned on and on about English. He wasn't the same person he used to be. He couldn't be.

But he was eager to discover who he was going to be!

-----

Nedzu was enjoying himself. Immensely.

There were easily a dozen puzzles that had presented themselves to him over the last month that he'd been entirely unaware of. Facts, people, connections- He was loving every minute that was spent teasing it all into something resembling a coherent picture!

With Toshinori's health restored, he was also able to put much more pressure on the man. His degree in Physical Fitness, while useful, wasn't going to be enough if he wanted to teach at U.A.

Watching Yagi's soul leave his body when the giant blond discovered he was being assigned homework, decades after he'd graduated... Ah, it was truly the little things in life that needed to be savored.

Of course, give came with take. As Nedzu was making demands of Yagi, All Might was making demands on him. Such as finding information from the early days of Quirks, sifting through incomplete records that had been largely destroyed during the intervening wars and skirmishes was a struggle on a good day.

At least the Number One Hero had given Nedzu a solid starting point. A name, Shigaraki Yoichi. They didn't have its spelling but there were only so many ways to make those names. So far, Nedzu had at least been able to confirm that someone with that name in that time frame had been regularly admitted to a hospital in a prefecture that no longer existed for a myriad of issues that could basically be summarized as being frail.

The boy hadn't had a listed Meta Ability on his record before his disappearance.

Unfortunately, the interim years between then and now had seen numerous warlords, nihilists, terrorists and tyrants that had been all too happy to try and destroy anything and everything that offended them. Including history.

Nedzu had not been working tirelessly on the subject. He simply had far too much to do as an administrator for a hero school to justify such a venture. It had proven a rather delightful distraction, however, from trying to figure out what clues All For One had left behind. Assuming that the man was still alive, of course.

On that one, it was always better to assume he was still alive. They'd trusted the mortician who'd declared him dead but... The man, upon closer investigation, had never existed. All of his information had been iron-clad and airtight for a cursory investigation into his background but immediately fell apart upon a more thorough investigation. The identity had been skillfully put together but wasn't intended to last.

The ruse had been successful. As people had been sighing in relief that their nightmares were over they hadn't been bothering to confirm the findings.

Nedzu took a long draw from his tea and looked away from his computer. He had more work to do. Always more work to do. He was still fielding complaints from the students that Aizawa had dropped from the heroics program that hadn't been re-invited to it.

Many had been returned to it. Placed under the Erasure hero to benefit from his tutelage after the incredibly harsh reality check.

What was it the humans would say? A few bad potatoes would spoil the bunch? It wasn't honestly uncommon for them to get a few individuals who just did not have the temperament to be heroes. They would try and funnel them to Aizawa as the man had no compunctions about removing them from his program.

Nedzu liked the man. He really did. Aizawa was terrified of him but the man could still his frightened heart long enough to make scathing remarks and share his observations. His style of teaching was a bit rough but he didn't have the time or energy to waste on people that were entirely unsuited to heroics, seeing the job as a means of glory without the trappings of duty.

Although... Taking another sip of his tea and reviewing some of the complaints and comparing them to the students that Eraserhead had accepted back into his class...

Aizawa was starting to get soft.

Nedzu would allow it. The man shifting his style in teaching may prove to be a better method. It may not. Only time would tell.

"Sir?" Nedzu's intercom crackled to life with Power Loader's voice. It was a few minutes earlier than he'd anticipated. "There's someone at the front gate. They say you invited them."

"And they're right on time!" Nedzu chirped, adapting his plans to accommodate the small shift. Pretending that one knows everything is often better than actually knowing everything! "Please, bring them to my office."

"..." The shirtless man responded, likely leading his guest to Nedzu's office instead of bothering to waste his time.

Nedzu hopped from his seat down to the step-stool next to it and then down to the floor. If he was going to entertain a guest, tea was an absolute must. He debated his options quickly and settled for a simple green tea.

The electric kettle was just starting to steam when the door to his office opened and Power Loader, Maijima Higari led his guest into the room.

"-had no idea that you guys even knew about that anime any more! Are they still making new seasons of Digimon? Your cosplay is great!" And Alec was following right behind him.

"...No." Power Loader grunted before looking over to Nedzu, one pale blue eye visible inside his giant helmet. The man was silently pleading with him, begging for help.

"Well, that sucks." Alec walked past him and waved to Nedzu, ambling towards a chair. "I guess most folks don't look at you and think 'Machinedramon' do they?"

"...I don't know anything about digimon." Power Loader told the wild card, audibly confused. "Why would they think of that when they look at me?"

"The helmet? Spiky orange hair poking out the back? Only wearing jeans? You're really going to tell me that you didn't borrow design notes from that old show?" Alec leaned towards Power Loader, looking into the eye-holes of his helmet. "It's alright. You can be honest, I won't judge you."

"Alec." Nedzu interrupted, drawing two sets of eyes onto him. "If you don't mind I'd rather appreciate if we could get down to business."

"...Alright." Alec turned to fully face the chimera, giving Majima the opening he needed to escape. "What do you need to know?"

"So much!" Nedzu had to tamp down on his own instincts as he nearly vibrated in place, excitement filling his every cell. "I have so many questions!"

"Well, I assumed as much." Alec admitted as he sat down in a chair across from Nedzu's desk. "What did you want to know?"

"First! It's a very important question. I want you to think carefully before you answer." Nedzu leaned forward and bared his teeth. It wasn't a smile, something he was quite sure Alec was aware of.

"How do you like your tea?"

 

[Mister Ficser]

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build FMA.0.1

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Something like two-thirds of the problem with the Game Shop, Alchemist mused, was that it had no sort functions. It relied exclusively on searching and scrolling.

Quality of Life features were a thing, Terra. He'd love to be able to sort from cheapest to most expensive, rather than-

Wait a second, hold up...

Did that thing say 'Free'?

Alchemist stopped scrolling down and headed back up.

Sitting between just under the Charmander and Chimchar eggs was an entry for Chimera's. One of which was, indeed, free. All he'd have to do is complete the quest, which shouldn't be too bad.

It was just listed as 'Save her!'. No additional details.

Well Hell, he had some solid healing magic and enough guns to make an Ork appreciate his dakka, this shouldn't be too bad. He armored up and hit the 'Accept' button.

-----

It took him an embarrasingly long time to figure out where he was.

He'd popped up in the back alley of a place called 'Central'. Which meant virtually nothing to him, since the word had a lot of uses.

Central city of the region? Central region of the country? Central hub of commerce?

Nope, Central was the name of the capital city of some godawful German speaking country that practiced genocide.

The nazi vibes were strong here, strong enough to be a problem...

He came from the central United States, he could handle racism, but this place, holy Hell...

Alright. Kind of a problem. The people here weren't too worried about a weirdo in a full suit of armor though, so he had that going for him. Now he just had to figure out which setting he was in, and if he was familiar with it, when he'd been thrown into it.

The local newspapers were, shockingly enough, not very helpful! A notice about sugar prices going up, some local murders being done by an awful butcher, an advertisement for a local automail maintenance shop opening up-

Automail?

That sounded familiar, like it was a plot point or a quirk for a main character...

He read through the advertisement again.

'He earns .75 an hour for every nut, bolt and connection he secures. All of our mechanics are well paid and well educated to ensure your automail is just as good if not better than your former limbs were. Squeaking, rattling, loose bolts or loss of range? Rest your metal at Riza's for a quality of care above and beyond the rest!'

Automail, replacement limbs... Oh! Alright. He knew where he was!

Oh. Shit. He knew where he was!

Now he just had to figure out when he was, and who he was supposed to save...

Goddamit, Terra.

-----

Well, hanging around Central hadn't been a good idea, being the seat of the nation's military and sitting on top of the nexus point for a country-sized transmutation circle... But Alchemist was running a little short on ideas for alternatives.

He'd made friends with the destitutes and unwanted, which was honestly easier than a lot of people would think. Suspicious and scared, sure, but they're also the ones who most appreciated a helping hand.

Normally he would've asked them for information, but he didn't even know what he didn't know. Instead he just tried to keep in the know about the major going-ons that filtered down.

Like some hot-shot kids joining the military, because child-soldiers are always a good idea.

Junior Justice League, glass houses and throwing stones- He didn't agree with that either! He just did what he could with the tools he could scrounge, build or steal!

He didn't typically bother with things like 'Patrolling'. That was for beat-cops and active vigilantes who wanted to be seen. Or idiotic children suffering from extra-dimensional brain parasites.

He wasn't a child! He just... Had an extra-dimensional brain parasite...

Regardless. He'd heard there was a man running around that the homeless insisted was an Ishvalan covered in scars and tattoos. A vengeful man with a body-count and a very, very broad range of what he considered an acceptable target.

Alchemist had been busy for the past few days trying to track down him, as well as whatever he could find about murderers and human traffickers in the area. To see if any of them were involved with whoever Terra wanted him to save.

He'd barely even started this morning when he got a notification!

~~Quest! Failed!~~
~~Nina Tucker has been converted into a Chimera!~~
~~ Dismiss?~~
~~ Y/N ~~

That? That-that-that was where he was in the timeline!? That was who he'd been meant to save?!

Gods above and below, Terra! He needed to know that!

He... Alchemist swallowed down his bile and took stock of the situation. He hadn't been transported back to the mountain yet, though the notification was hanging in front of him ominously.

So, it was waiting on him then.

Fine.

Alchemist began moving, his every step light with contained, cautious fury.

As the rain began to fall from thick, heavy clouds overhead the people of Central shuttered their windows and locked their doors.

A storm had arrived.

-----

Edward Elric was running through the streets, looking for, for... Nina. Or Alexander. She was both! But he- he could fix it! He had to! He would find a way!

Curse his little legs, he needed to move faster!

"Brother!" His younger brother, Alphonse called out to him, perpetually a step behind. "We'll find her! Please slow down!"

"Al! I can't!" Though even saying that, he did slow down enough for the living suit of armor to reach his side. "You saw what he did to her! She doesn't understand what she is, maybe even who she is! We need to-"

Edward was cut off by a pillar of light roaring into the heavens from a few streets over. He didn't say anything to Al, just taking off at a dead sprint!

He found someone, a man if he had to guess, walking away from an alley and holding the Chimera like it was a child. Singing to it, softly. "-~fly through my window, little bird little bird fly through my window, find mollases candy~"

Looking into the alley, Ed saw a skeleton lit aglow with what he could only call holy light. Even looking at the hollowed eye sockets, he felt he was being judged by whatever, or whomever, had just been killed.

"Mister?" Al tried to approach the armored individual, possibly an alchemist judging by what Ed saw. "That's our friend there. Can you give her to us? We need to help her."

"You wouldn't be allowed to." The impossibly deep fury in that voice, promising violence if pressed wrong, nearly brought Ed short. "Your masters would sooner poke and prod and dissect rather than cure. Where is Shou Tucker."

Nina tried to turn her head to face them but the black-armored alchemist kept a hold on her, gently stroking the back of her head.

"Like we're gonna tell you anything!" Ed shouted, tearing his eyes away from the still-glowing bones. He jerked his arms and bent his neck, sprinting at the man! "So give her back!"

Ed... Didn't quite make it all the way. The person lashed out with his free hand at the last second, placing his palm on Ed's forehead. Using his greater height to keep the small blonde teen just far enough away that he couldn't hit him. When Ed relaxed his legs for a moment, getting ready to try something else, the gauntlet pulled back for a second before slapping against his forehead.

"Ed...Ward?" That distorted voice, coming from the chimera, broke Ed's heart.

It hurt more than the sudden pain shooting through his right shoulder and the remnants of his left leg!

"It's alright, sweetie. I'm not going to hurt your brother, I promise." And the bastard in the black armor was still looking down on him! "You should check on him, though. I'd imagine what I've done won't be very pleasant, but I won't brook further interference."

He'd been talking at Alphonse for the last moment before he let go of Ed's head. The Fullmetal Alchemist tried to take a step forward, but his automail was burning and refused to listen to him! When he let go, Ed listed to the side before falling over, one arm and one leg refusing to obey him!

He watched as the man in Black Armor walked down the road, the pouring rain parting around him...

-----

Maes Hughes, the intelligence expert, was dealing with a migraine. Possibly the worst he'd ever felt.

And he was used to working with Mustang!

The after-action report for the night before was a mess of contradictions and nightmares.

One person had torn through the State Alchemists, the Central Police and the Military Police.

One handed!

This mystery man, wearing an imposing suit of black armor with a dark blue surcoat, had simply torn through everything they'd tried to put in his way.

As far as the timeline went, the first person to encounter him had actually been Edward Elric, at the scene of a murder. And they were still trying to figure out what, exactly had happened. And to who.

All they had from that scene was a skeleton, male, aged roughly between twenty-five and thirty. Which was glowing a discomfortingly bright white and seemed to actively repel something like a third of the personnel who tried to handle it.

Black, as he was being named in the report, had gone on to do something to the Fullmetal Alchemist. Something that caused the boys body to eject every scrap of metal and then regrow his missing limbs.

There wasn't a single alchemist who had something even approaching a clue as to how he accomplished that.

Then perhaps fifteen minutes after his encounter with the Elrics, Black had shown up at the Tucker Manor. He disabled and, in some cases crippled, all of the opposition there before setting the manor on fire and doing something to Brigadier General Basque Grand. State Alchemists that had been nearby said that he asked the man a question, and did not like the answer.

He did -something- to the man, though what had yet to be determined, and then asked him again.

'Where was Shou Tucker' and this time, when the Brigadier General tried to answer he began coughing up blood and clutching at his chest with his remaining limb.

Apparently, alongside impossible regeneration alchemy, Black could also force someone to confess the truth to him or else suffer potentially lethal harm.

With the location of a man that was supposed to have been executed on-site for the crime of Human Alchemy Experimentation, Black just left.

The timeline got a bit muddled there, but the next report was very clear.

Black had stopped an incognito convoy, literally broke the members of the Military Police that had been escorting the 'Dead' Shou Tucker and then... Again, did something that the people on-site couldn't describe.

Regardless, Shou Tucker was a vegetable sitting in the medical wing here in Central Command. He didn't blink, didn't speak... The man was just soulless.

Hughes dropped his head down on his desk, almost knocking over his coffee.

The top brass wanted Black, and they wanted him yesterday. But he'd literally disappeared and nobody knew where the hell he went!

How the hell were they supposed to deal with avenging ghosts?!

-----

Wonder Woman, Diana at the moment, was barely awake and barely enjoying her coffee.

She hated dealing with her ambassador duties, and barely tolerated wasting time at the embassy.

"Stop! You cannot enter!" One of her sister amazons shouted from beyond the closed door to her office. "I said stop! I will use force if you do not halt immediately!"

"This is an emergency! I need to see Diana!" Wonder Woman snapped to full wakefulness when she heard that voice. "Please it- She-"

Diana didn't need to hear anymore. She rushed to the door, slamming them open with enough force to crack the masonry around their impact points.

Alchemist, clad in full armor, stood in the middle of a circle of amazons. Each of them pointing a weapon at him. Mostly swords, but some guns.

He was holding a mangy looking dog, its long fur dangling limply around its head.

"Diana!" He didn't even pay any attention to the warrior women around him. "Please! I need to see Apollo! This- I can't fix her!"

"Alchemist." She slowly walked forward, her sisters lowering their weapons at her calm tone. "You can't simply barge in here over a simple dog. I somehow doubt-"

"Hurts." The dog groaned, speaking into Alchemist's neck. "It... Hurts."

"I know sweetie. Just a little longer, okay?" He had both arms wrapped around the dog thing, holding it tightly against him. "Diana, please. This-this is beyond me. I can't fix what her father did to her, please..."

"...Get the jet ready." She said after half a moment of thought.

"But Princess, he's a-" One of her aides started, but froze when Diana fixed her with a glare.

"I'll deal with it. Go!"

 

[Mister Ficser]

"...In a cup." Alec answered after a moment of thought. "Just make it the same as your own."

He didn't know what kind the chimera was making and, truth be told, his knowledge of tea was vanishingly thin. He knew that there were people that claimed to be able to determine someone's personality and general history from how they took their tea... But if it was an actual skill, it wasn't one that Alec had.

He watched attentively as Nedzu busied himself with a little box of tea leaves and a kettle that sat on an electric base. Nedzu didn't add any sugar or honey but he did indulge with a heavy amount of milk.

The small creature hummed happily as he brought a cup on a saucer over to where Alec sat and offered it to him. Alec held the gently steaming cup under his nose.

Floral. Citrusy. Kind of peppery. It smelled great, really.

Alec took a sip.

And it was disgustingly bitter, as he'd expected.

"You know, most humans simply cannot stand how I take my tea." Nedzu admitted after he'd crawled up and into his chair. "At this point, I've taken to thinking it may be a difference in taste buds."

"Probably." Alec admitted as he took another sip. The milk in it did help to temper the flavor to something reasonably palatable. "I know most people prefer to only have a little tea with their sugar."

Once upon a time, multiple life-times ago, Alec had been married. He remembered his wife then had loved bubble tea. Full of different jellies and beans. It hadn't been bad, the times he'd shared it with her.

Sweet, though. Even the 'Light' option had been incredibly sweet.

"A terrible habit." Nedzu remarked, sipping at his own cup. Well, for the small creature those sips were more like large gulps. "There are so many flavors to be enjoyed that are too subtle to taste under such circumstances."

"I suppose so." Alec didn't exactly agree. He also didn't disagree. He lacked any such comprehensive knowledge. "But are you able to taste them?"

"Absolutely!" And that didn't help narrow down Nedzu's species at all. "That's a very good question, actually. Your telling Yagi that I may in fact be a weasel was quite inspired."

"Hmm..." Alec hummed, buying himself a moment as his bilocation duplicate crept invisibly through the home of the director of the Hero Public Safety Commission. Nedzu had been so kind as to offer him an alibi, after all. "It doesn't quite match the body shape but it does fit the face and tail."

"So it does." Nedzu didn't smile but he seemed to sit up a bit straighter. "Still, not quite right. Would you care to try again?"

"No, I'm good." Alec could live with a bit of mystery. Dedicating hours upon hours to figuring out something that didn't have any impact on him... Well, he lacked the paranoia to do that too much these days. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"...I understand you've been picking up part-time work around Tokyo." Nedzu stated, pulling his computer closer to himself. "Your employers often had rather good things to say about your work, too."

"I do have a reasonable amount of skill involving repair work. Things have changed throughout the years but a leaky pipe is a leaky pipe." Honestly, Alec hadn't even needed to use Repair or Mending as much as he'd expected. A lot of times, the work he'd found just involved getting dirty or working hard. "Some basic know-how and a willingness to figure things out on the spot is surprisingly valuable."

If Nedzu had been expecting Alec to be disturbed that the chimera was keeping tabs on him, he was going to be disappointed. Alec had worked under Batman, Nedzu's paranoia didn't compare at all.

Alec sipped his tea as he stared into Nedzu's beady little eyes. Meanwhile, Alec was also unplugging every appliance in the Director's home and going through her mail. He didn't find anything incriminating but he also really wasn't expecting to. Naoko Yui was a politician, not some rank amateur.

Ideally, he would actually be tracking down a black market broker known as Giran but Alec ran into more than a few roadblocks on that quest. He didn't remember the man's actual name, so Scrying didn't work well. The underworld itself was in something of a silent panic, too. It seemed someone had taken out the Yakuza and now every criminal element with more than three brain cells was running quiet.

"You might be surprised at how difficult that lesson is to instill in our students." Nedzu muttered, likely intentionally loud enough to be heard. "Alec, tell me. What would you think if I offered you a job?"

"I think I'm not qualified." Alec fired off without a second of hesitation. "One of your school's major points of pride is that you're fully staffed by licensed heroes."

"Very true!" Nedzu didn't quite chirp but his voice had definitely risen in pitch. "And if I told you that I might be interested in employing a secretary?"

"Well, first off, I am definitely not pretty enough for the position." Alec sent the rat half a grin, keeping his mouth shut. "Second... I'd suggest someone that would clash with your reputation. Someone sweet, kind and only terrifying if properly roused. Perhaps Midoriya Inko?"

Alec would hate to lose her as a babysitter for Eri but he was still happy enough to try and send the woman a little good luck.

"Who also does not have a hero license." Nedzu observed, taking another long sip of his terrible tea.

"You opened that door." Alec countered, drinking his own disgustingly bitter beverage.

"So I did." Nedzu agreed quietly. "Well, if you're not interested in such a position, may I ask how you plan to procure a more stable means of funding yourself?"

"I've got a few ideas." Alec admitted before he set his cup down on the desk in front of himself and reached into his jacket to extract a few folded sheets of paper. They were gently unfolded and then placed across from the chimera.

The top page, in large print, said 'Prestidigitation'.

"One option, I could sell powers." Which was slightly disingenuous. Spells were a bit more than just 'Powers'. They could open the door to entire fields of research, potentially change the balance of power entirely.

"I... See..." Nedzu crawled across his desk and shuffled the top page to the side so he could get at the actual contents. "And your other idea?"

"Well, I know a method of making Metallic Hydrogen. Once I get one metastable sample, I could manufacture more." Nedzu looked up in confusion at Alec's admission. "Supposedly has the properties of a room-temperature superconductor. I checked the prices of gold and platinum but someone bottomed out the value on those."

"You... Have access to such precious metals?" Nedzu couldn't seem to decide if he wanted to read what was in front of him or press Alec about how he had such valuable materials.

"I -am- a dragon." Alec countered, finally grinning and showing off a mouthful of sharp teeth. "And I know a thing or two about treasure."

Like what he'd just found under the Madame Director's bottom drawer of her wardrobe. Today was looking to be a very, very good day.

At least, for him.

 

[Obscura]

get back on track
While the Daughteru discussion isn't really a problem in it's own right, this isn't the place for it.

 

[Mister Ficser]

Izuku wouldn't pretend he understood everything that was going on.

Some people out there insisted that Quirks followed some kinds of laws, some kind of logic. Izuku knew that they were just the feebleminded, struggling to make sense of a world that had taken logic and hurled it out the window.

The cashier at his favorite corner-store had great big studio microphones that popped out of his wrists and a large speaker in his neck. The poor guy had a personal and perpetual bass-line going in tune with his heartbeat.

On the other hand, he was also apparently a star on the internet because he did improv rap in his free time.

So, Izuku knew that Quirks didn't follow logic. Instead, after a lot of observation and time spent trawling and trolling the internet, he'd decided that Quirks followed -Themes- instead.

Some, like transferable Quirks, were extremely rare. As in, before Izuku had heard about One For All he'd known of three. Total. In all of Quirk history.

Two of them had time limits on how long they could be loaned out before they would return to their actual owner. The other one was an oddball Quirk that would let the current holder do things like party tricks but didn't seem to touch on the current holder's original Quirk. That one had been around for something like a hundred and fifty years and in that entire time it had remained in the hands of the World Clown Association who had jealously guarded it since they'd gotten their giant, inflatable hands on it.

Or it wasn't an actual Quirk and was instead a joke... Izuku wasn't sure about that.

"The thing about magic..." Alec had insisted that he could teach most people how to do some of what he did, once when Izuku had been mumbling about how cool his Dragon Transformation ability had been. He'd even offered to teach Izuku if he was interested. "Is that just about anyone can do it. There are some who can't, of course, just like there are some people who can't do any pull-ups."

"Is that because you can't do any pull-ups, Mister Alec?" Eri asked him.

Eri, Izuku and his mother Inko had all joined Alec on an excursion to one of the local parks. He'd said that he wasn't intending on teaching them anything dangerous but he'd also admitted that connecting a person to their magic could have... Interesting results.

"It was intended as an example, but yes." The small dragon admitted to the horned girl.

Izuku had noted that her horn had been growing. He had a lot of questions about it, like if it needed Calcium to grow, if it was an indicator of how much temporal manipulation she could manage, if the skin around it would itch because of its changing shape.

"Magic may be unique to the individual but its use rarely is." Alec continued, reaching into his tiny jacket and carefully extracting a large bundle of papers. "You can think of it like ice-cream. There are a thousand and one flavors of ice-cream but underneath of that it's all still water, sugar and cream."

"What about sherbet?" Izuku asked while the dragon sorted the papers into coherent bundles.

"Or sorbet?" His mom asked, a hand over her mouth as she giggled.

"Pudding!" Eri didn't shout, the girl was far too quiet for that even with her Guardian Dragon nearby. "I want mine to be like pudding!"

"All good options." Alec grumbled good naturedly, rolling his eyes at them. "Let's think of those as being alternatives that some people have. Maybe unique skills. Maybe Spell-Like Abilities. Could even be Quirks. All of them fall into the category of being special but they aren't all the same thing."

Izuku flashed a grin at his mom who smiled back at him over Eri's head. It was easier to get Eri to be outspoken around Alec but the fragmented memories and impressions he had suggested that any victory was a good one, there.

The de-aged boy looked down at the packet that Alec handed him, then glanced over to the one in his mother's hands. Eri, instead of being trusted with any papers, had Alec sitting directly in front of her.

"We're going to start small." Alec told them all. "This is one of the easiest spells to learn. It is also one of the most useful, in my experience."

The pamphlet in Izuku's hands had a single word on the front page. In large, bold letters it said 'Cure'.

His mom's said 'Prestidigitation' instead.

"Eri, I know you can't read yet. That's okay. There are a few different ways to learn how to use magic and I'll show you one." The dragon held his claw up to the white-haired girl, his palm up and fingers splayed apart. "Here, take my hand and close your eyes. I'm going to teach you the spell 'Protect'."

Izuku flipped over the page as Eri grabbed on to Alec's hand. Beside the girl, Izuku's mom was doing the same. The instructions inside were...

Gibberish.

Izuku had no idea about any kind of 'Internal wellspring of strength'!

"Oh!" But his mom sounded like she understood? "Huh. That's... Huh."

"Alright, Eri. Do you feel that?" Alec asked the girl in between the Midoriyas. She had her face scrunched up in concentration. Her eyes were closed and she actually had her tongue peaking out from the side of her mouth. "That's magic. I have a lot, more than most people. You've got some, more than enough to cast the spell. Just grab on to that feeling and coax it along, do what I do. Don't force it, though, okay? It'll be like you're grabbing water if you do."

"I can't feel anything!" Izuku didn't quite whine. He didn't!

"That's alright." Alec said, opening his eyes and craning his neck to face Izuku. "Some people have a harder time finding it. Nedzu couldn't get the same spell I gave your mom figured out for a long time. Once I get Eri squared away, we'll get you sorted out. Okay?"

Izuku flipped through the pages on Cure, turning them a bit more harshly than he normally would. He was frustrated, he knew that, but he was usually better at controlling it...

He exhaled heavily, his mom looking at him with worry, as he finally realized what the issue was.

He was eight again. He was a -child- again. He hadn't been prone to outbursts like yelling or screaming but he'd always been told he was a bright, clever child and it had frustrated him immensely when he didn't understand something.

Because that made him feel stupid. Because that made him worry that the one thing he had going for him, wasn't ever going to be good enough. Then he'd get sullen and depressed, hiding in his room. Surrounded by the All Might action figures and posters, many of them with brilliant smiles and slogans.

Having met his hero... Izuku's room was a lot more bare, now. He still respected the Number One hero, he really did but... The worship was just, well, it was just gone.

"I did it!" Eri shrieked, pulling Izuku out of his maudlin thoughts with her sheer, unexpected volume. "I did it, I did it, I did it! See? Look!"

She pointed her fingers at Izuku and had a look of concentration on her face for a moment before Izuku felt like he was being wrapped in a warm, snug jacket.

"Very good!" Alec praised, reaching up to ruffle her hair with one claw. "Why don't you go show it to Inko, see if she needs any help? I promised Izuku I'd help him with his spell, too."

The girl, in a bout of excitement that surpassed anything Izuku had seen from her so far, ran to his mom to start talking at her excitedly. When Izuku looked back, though, he found the small dragon sitting directly in front of him.

One hand raised and his fingers splayed apart.

"Here. Go ahead and grab my hand." The dragon told him. Izuku reached out with his right hand, his fingers awkwardly intertwined around claws. "Now, just close your eyes and focus on your heartbeat. It's not quite the anchor point of the soul but... Well, it's close enough."

"...Does it have anything to do with the chakra theory?" Izuku asked, an odd feeling forming behind his eyes.

"It... Might? I've never really studied much about the eastern philosophies. I was never actually interested in drinking mercury." Izuku knew he wasn't hearing the dragon's actual voice. His mouth never moved when he talked. "If you feel something, anything, focus on it. Feel it. Experience it."

"...Alright." Izuku did feel something. It was light, almost wispy. But across from it was something else. Something massive. Something that... Felt like the number seven? And Izuku could swear he could taste oranges. "I definitely feel something but I'm not sure what."

"That's your magic." Alec told him, his voice quiet. "It's yours and yours alone. I think you've actually got a decent amount, at least for someone without training. I'm going to show you how to turn it into the Cure spell. Just follow along as best you can, alright? We can take our time."

"Okay." Izuku watched, he felt how the magic shifted. How it was imprinted with... Izuku didn't know how to describe it. The little bit of magic that Alec had broken off, that was formed in between them, changed. The identity to it shifted, the color changed. The idea, a feeling, a name... Became Cure.

It was absolutely fascinating.

"The hell is this, Deku!?" And it was interrupted by the screeching of someone that refused to be ignored.

Izuku opened his eyes and schooled his features, hiding his frustration. From his sitting position he leaned backwards. And back, and back and even further back until his head was tilted upside down and he could see Bakugo Katsuki. Izuku was about to speak when he heard something that sent chills down his spine.

"I would appreciate it, young man, if you could watch your language." Izuku could see Alec stepping around him and squaring up in front of Katsuki. The small dragon had to look up to meet the explosive boy's eyes. "There are children present."

"Tch." Katsuki glared down at the dragon, clicking his tongue in frustration. Izuku could smell something, burnt caramel in the air and saw sweat glistening on Katsuki's brow. "What are you gonna do about it, shrimp?"

"Rude." Alec raised one claw and snapped his fingers. "How about you go and rain on someone else's parade, hmm?"

There was a sound akin to thunder and... A tiny cloud formed over Katsuki's head?

Which quickly began to release a downpour on the confused, angry boy.

"What the- The hell is this?!" Katsuki shouted, his hair dropping from the spiky, cemented hairstyle he preferred and clinging to his forehead. The sudden, concentrated downpour also worked to dilute the boy's explosive sweat. "The hell did you do!?"

"I'm a dragon, kid. Be one heckuva trick for me to have a Quirk that could do that, too." Alec explained slowly. "But you? Actin' like my personal raincloud, kid?"

"You're really draggin' me down."

 

[Mister Ficser]

MHA 20

Alec had a list of things that he needed to do that was getting shorter and shorter with every day. He'd gotten out of Izuku's body. Put Izuku back in Izuku's body. Pulled Eri out from under Overhaul's scientifically incompetent hands. Given Nedzu a tool that should keep the little rat busy for a week or two. Instilled paranoia in the HPSC and, once he got some equipment put together, would have them chasing ghosts.

He had time to follow up on his own interests now that he wasn't stuck putting out or starting two fires at once.

Which was something of an ironic analogy considering his current task involved fire.

"Alright Mister, uh, Endeavor. That's forty liters of compressed H-Two." The clerk across from Alec said as another man wheeled a tall, aluminum canister over to the side of the desk. "That will be sixty-nine thousand, two-hundred and ten yen. Will that be cash or card?"

"Cash." Alec grunted, his voice deepened considerably by disguise magic. "Make sure I get a receipt. This is a business expense."

The machine printed off a small receipt as Alec counted out the various bills and coins needed to cover the exact price. Midway into counting out the coins he had to set a small bag he'd brought with him on the counter to extract a change-purse full of small denomination coins.

"That's so cool!" The clerk, a kid that could barely put his phone down, exclaimed with stars in his eyes as he stared at the form of the Number Two Hero. "I didn't know you used Hydrogen gas at your agency! Is it for one of your sidekicks? Do they use it to, to, I don't know, make super hot flames?!"

"Almost right." Alec said absentmindedly. "It's actually for me. I'm getting older, it's getting harder and harder to use my supermoves. With the high burn temperature and relative ease of ignition, Hydrogen helps me cut down my charge times."

"Wow!" The clerk nearly shouted. "That's amazing! I had no idea you could do that!"

Alec grunted irritably, counting out the exact change for his bill. As he set down the last ten-yen coin, his wrist knocked over the bag he'd placed on the counter. Two items fell out, hitting the ground loudly.

"I'm so sorry!" The boy bowed, nearly hitting his forehead on the counter. "Let me get that for you!"

"No!" Alec shouted. "Wait!"

He shouted too late, of course, and a second later the clerk was holding up the two items that had fallen to the floor. A coiled length of sterile surgical tubing, two and a half centimeters in diameter and a bottle of... Personal... Lubricant.

"Ah... Sir?" The boy was turning red as he looked at the items in his hands. "Are these... Why do you...?"

"...Nobody will believe you." Alec growled, flames escaping from the nostrils of his illusionary self.

He was struggling to keep from laughing, something that helped immensely with the situation his other self was dealing with.

The next time someone told Endeavor he was full of hot air... Well...

It was going to mean something a little bit different.

-----

Alec had a lot of mixed feeling about Bakugo Katsuki. The kid was a victim of his society, that much was certainly true in an opposite but equal way that Midoriya Izuku was. He'd never been held accountable for his actions, bullying and even beating on people without suffering the consequences of such choices.

Because he was strong. Because he had potential. Because he had a 'Strong' Quirk.

The boy had continued yelling after his Quirk had been rendered near-useless but it was all the same few things on repeat. Impersonal profanities, threats that Alec was honestly eager to see him follow through on and curses thrown in Izuku's direction until Alec would say something else and regain his attention.

Katsuki was among those that had told Izuku to kill himself. He wasn't the deciding factor, no, but he was not an innocent in that event.

Something Inko seemed to be well aware of, given that she was trembling and red with fury. Holding on to Eri seemed to be the only thing stopping her from doing something drastic. Alec would place better than even odds that Katsuki had a fair number of things inside of him that were small enough for her Quirk, the attraction of small objects, to latch on to. Teeth, kidneys, glands...

Although given the woman's lack of action, Alec suspected she'd never applied her abilities to such an extent.

The wet, screaming child was lucky, really. Alec hadn't been able to stand being Izuku for very long whilst he'd inhabited that body but he did perform a thorough examination. He'd needed to make sure he hadn't healed it with anything lodged inside. During the course of which, Alec had not found any suspicious burn scars. Katsuki's abuse, while Alec knew it had gotten physical from time to time, had not included using his Quirk to burn or torment Izuku.

Just to destroy his property.

"Do you ever shut up?" Alec finally had enough when the boy tried to turn his vitriol on Eri. "Or are you so terrified of being ignored that you have to scream at everything?"

"Shut the hell up, creepy ass drago-" Alec had finally had enough. He stepped forward towards Katsuki and broke the effect of Mini, assuming his true size. Katsuki went to take a step back but was not nearly fast enough to avoid Alec wrapping his claws around the boy's face, conveniently covering his mouth.

"Perhaps nobody has explained this, boy, but the most important part of answering a question? Involves actually answering the question." Alec kept his grip firm but he was not squeezing. Katsuki's attempts at removing the giant scaly hand around his mouth was laughably feeble.

Unfortunately, Alec did not find the situation amusing, not at all.

"Now." Alec continued, ignoring the muffled screaming of the blond in his hand. "If you can be civil, we can talk. Do you understand?"

There was a long, long moment of angry silence before Katsuki released a muffled 'Fine'. Upon releasing him, Alec was pleasantly surprised to find that, while Katsuki was glaring at him, he wasn't cursing or screaming.

"Now then. Bakugo Katsuki, I believe? Did you, perhaps, need something from one of us?" Alec stepped back and began to shake the water free of his arm. He could be civil to the boy, more than Katsuki was to them... At least, so long as he didn't press his luck too much further.

A rabid dog was the result of its circumstances, the same as Katsuki. It, at least, had the excuse that it could not be treated after the fact. The explosive blond was never forced to change, nor motivated to do so unprompted.

After all, in this world, Strength is Justice.

"I saw the... Nerd." Katsuki struggled momentarily to check his tongue, likely not wanting to be silenced again. "And I wanted to find out what the fu... Heck happened to him."

"Ah, that." Alec briefly turned to the group he'd been teaching and focused on Izuku. The child shrugged at him. Good enough. "Well, that would be a combination of factors, child. You. Me. Even All Might."

"The hell's that supposed to mean?!" The boy shouted, glaring at Alec briefly before backing down at the large dragon's unimpressed stare.

"To be incredibly brief... You told him to kill himself. All Might shattered his dream." Alec leaned down until his yellow eyes were even with Katsku's red. "And I woke up in his body, shattered upon the pavement below."

Katsuki paled considerably, an impressive feat with his increasingly clammy skin. His eyes darted towards Izuku and back to Alec, his Adams apple bobbing slowly as he swallowed dryly.

"I know of someone with a truly impressive Quirk for repairing things and I got their help." Alec continued, his eyes locked on the boy instead of glancing over to Eri. "They did over-correct a bit, I'm afraid, but it quite successfully resurrected young Izuku."

Alec opened his jaw just a bit, exposing the razor sharp teeth in his maw. "You should be happy, really. With his life restored, it erases the evidence of your guilt."

The dragon sat back and closed his mouth, tilting his head just a bit clockwise as he considered the shaking boy in front of him. Katsuki's hands were shaking, he was breathing in short, sharp breaths and he looked about ready to explode. Alec closed his eyes and shook his head.

It seemed as though the angry boy was about to reject everything he'd said because it likely didn't align with whatever beliefs he had.

Fine.

"Unless, of course, you came here for another reason?" Alec offered the boy an olive branch. "If you simply wished to see Izuku, you could simply say as such."

"What?!" Katsuki squawked, glaring at Izuku before violently turning his soaking wet head towards the dragon. "The hell would I want to see him for?!"

"Well, you seem incredibly fixated upon someone that, by all rights, should not be a threat to you." Alec tilted his head back in the opposite direction, observing the boy like he was some kind of mild curiosity. "Did you keep such a close eye on him before? Or is it a recent change?"

"I'm not fu-freaking fixated on him!" Katsuki shouted, snapping his finger ineffectually. "He's just some shitty, quirkless nerd!"

"Ah." Alec acted as though Katsuki had said something profound. "So it's a recent change. You know, that's really not appropriate."

"...What?" Katsuki asked, dumb confusion short-circuiting his building anger.

"Look at him, boy!" Alec waved at Izuku who, it must be said, looked terribly confused. "He's eight! Lusting after him is incredibly inappropriate!"

"What? But... What?" And Katsuki was at a loss for words.

"I understand that you simply cannot help yourself." Alec continued, riding the trainwreck for as far as it would go. "But there are support groups for people with your affliction."

"Inko?" Alec turned his neck around to look at the increasingly confused woman.

"Are there still Mahou Sensei Negima fanclubs?"

 

[Mister Ficser]

Izuku didn't really know how but things stabilized.

Losing half of his age, coming back from the dead, learning magic... He didn't really understand how those sorts of events could just fall behind. They were critical, they were important, they literally redefined his life.

And all of them happened in the recent past. They'd shaded the present in new and interesting ways but the present still formed the future and it didn't care about how difficult the day before had been.

School had been an experience. A bit of good. A bit of bad. Telling Katsuki 'I'm sorry, you're just not my type' had been both the most nerve wracking thing Izuku had ever done... But also, perhaps, the single funniest thing he'd yet pulled off.

The magic... It was like a Quirk, one he'd been pushed to learn. It had its own pool of stamina that would chip away every time he used it, like how most Quirks would wear down the user. And the spells evolved, got stronger over time. Every time he emptied his pool of magical stamina, it had a chance of getting a little bigger. Of refilling a little faster. Every day when Izuku woke up, he kept on casting the spells Alec had given him, over and over again.

Cure and Protect. The ability to heal and one that would reduce the amount of harm inflicted on him if he got hurt... Even just one of those would have been amazing tools to becoming a Rescue Hero.

Prestidigitation, the spell his mom had first learned, was beyond useful. It didn't do anything huge, no, but it seemed like it was able to do a tiny amount of almost anything. It could change colors, start fires, conjure small objects, clean things or make them dirty with a desired stain. Create brief illusionary sounds, make something literally taste like anything, create illusionary smells. It was even able to act like his mom's Quirk, although it was even weaker than her own!

And it did all of that for free! Izuku had tested it extensively, when his magical stamina was at its best versus when he felt exhausted and the results had remained consistent. The spell was a weak ability to rewrite the fundamental aspects of reality. Some of the things it did were temporary, like the color changes or simple item conjuration (Screwdrivers and pocket knives counted!), but others were simple and permanent like the cleaning and staining.

Aside from the cleaning aspect, Izuku had put a lot of effort into figuring out how to make things transparent. If he did become a hero, if he could find a way to pass the entrance exams without being laughed out of the school buildings, he could use those abilities to rescue people from collapsed buildings or landslides.

But... Izuku wanted to do more than that. He wanted to do everything, help everyone. He wanted to be able to rescue people and he wanted to stop the villains from hurting them to begin with.

He wanted to do more... And he knew who to ask for help. He just... Didn't know how to ask.

Izuku set his pencil down and looked over to Eri. The girl usually spent about two days out of the week with him and his mom. His mom loved it, though she was also over the moon about her baby being her baby again.

Something Izuku had been beyond embarrassed about the first time he heard his mom say that.

He'd always known his mom wanted him to have a sibling but that was a little difficult to pull off with his dad working at I-Island ten months out of the year. And his mom had just gotten too old to have another child without risking complications.

Eri staying over two or three days a week had really helped with that. His mom would dote on the girl, take her to parks and just did everything she could to enrich Eri's days and keep the girl active and entertained.

And then Alec would show up. The dragon wasn't quite a fixture in their lives like he was for Eri. Most of his interactions with them came through Eri. He would turn up after a phone call, leave Eri with them after demanding an awkward hug from the child, give his mom six-thousand yen and then he'd head off to do whatever job he'd found. He'd return, usually late at night and talk with Izuku's mom for a bit about what Eri had gotten up to during her stay and repay her for any additional expenses that had come up.

It had turned into a routine.

The buzzing of the intercom drew Izuku's attention and Eri, mumbling along with the end credits to her current favorite show, hopped out of her seat to run to the door.

"Alec!" His mom exclaimed at the door. "You look exhausted. Another rough day?"

"Yeah." The dragon grumbled as he leaned down and let Eri grab on to his face. He continued once the excitable girl let go. "Another construction job. The pay's good, at least."

Izuku lingered at the edge of the entrance hall, letting everyone else speak first. Alec did have physical tells when he was tired. His wings would droop slightly, his steps were a bit heavier and his neck was a bit less rigid which gave him a bit of a hunch. Izuku knew the man's Quirk would be great for villainy, just the dragon form alone would make a smash and grab insanely easy. He was big, strong, fast and heavily armored. Add on the ability to fly and the number of heroes that could deal with him was vanishingly thin.

Add in that Izuku had heard him make an offhand comment about flying into space and that number dropped into the single digits. He thought Endeavor might be able to do something about Alec but only up to a certain altitude. Hawks was even less able to handle the man, Izuku doubted his feathers could penetrate Alec's scales. Ryukyu might be able to do something, her claws were considered one of the hardest naturally forming substances made by a Quirk but it still ran into the issue of catching him.

Alec had incredible power... And he spent his time doing manual labor, working honest jobs instead of going mad and thinking himself invincible, above things like common courtesy or decency. That kind of strength and he did nothing with it? If Izuku were religious, he'd consider it a kind of blasphemy.

"Oh..." Izuku's mom shuffled awkwardly from one foot to the other, bringing one hand up to her chin in a show of discomfort. "I was hoping I could ask you for a favor but if you're too tired, I'll ask Izuku instead."

"It's fine, what did you need?"

"Izuku has a test tomorrow so I wanted to make katsudon for dinner tonight. For good luck." The vague curiosity Izuku had felt suddenly turned to excitement. He loved his mother's katsudon! "But I need a few things from the store. Could you go and get them for me?"

"Absolutely. Eri, do you mind staying here for a bit while I go and get that taken care of?" The dragon asked, leaning down so his eyes were even with the albino child's. "I can't imagine it will take more than half an hour."

"Can I come?" Izuku asked, drawing the eyes of both Alec and his mother. "I kind of... I wanted to talk with you but, I mean, if you don't-"

"So long as Inko agrees, you're welcome to come along." Alec cut him off as he began to ramble. Izuku took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, the urge to mumble and ramble cut off by being directly addressed and answered.

"Oh, that's perfectly fine!" Inko beamed at her son before she pulled a list out of her apron. "He can help you carry the bags!"

"Alright then. Izuku, would you mind grabbing the list?" Izuku did as the dragon requested. "Alright. Lead on, McDuff. I don't know which store has the brands your mom likes."

The two of them left the apartment in a surprisingly comfortable silence. The distant sun was setting, the roads were jam-packed with cars, Izuku caught sight of a magazine at a corner store about the Number Two Hero: Endeavor and his declining power along with how he was combating the effect of growing old.

Behind them, a short old man was following at about half a block away. Izuku wasn't sure who they were, they'd moved into the apartment block next to his own and one floor higher up. Izuku had noticed the little gray-haired man always seemed to be around when Alec would show up.

This was the first time Izuku had noticed him following either of them, though.

"So, what was on your mind, Izuku?" Alec asked him once they'd stopped at a crosswalk to wait for the light to turn. The little corner store that Izuku's mom really liked was a few blocks away, not too terribly far. It made for a good walk from time to time, a great reason to get out of the house.

"I... I wanted to ask you something. Something really important." It was the single most important question Izuku could think of. It literally meant life or death to him. "Can I be a hero?"

"Of course you can." Alec answered. The dragon hadn't even taken a moment to think about it. As though it were a simple, silly thing to ask.

"Even without a Quirk?" Izuku felt something desperate building in his chest. The last time he'd asked that question, he...

"A Quirk doesn't make a hero, Izuku." Alec stated as he turned his head to look at the boy. He brought one claw up and gently tapped Izuku in the chest. "That does. One of the greatest heroes I knew didn't have any super powers. He was smart, he was well funded, but he achieved his strength through training. There are countless geniuses out there, Izuku. More millionaires than I can name. Potential, regardless of its source, means nothing without the heart to use it."

Izuku looked down to the ground. His vision was blurry, his nose felt like it was full of cotton and he could feel his teeth grinding.

"Can...?" Izuku hiccuped and rubbed his arm across his eyes, brushing away tears. "Can you teach me?"

"Some." Alec agreed, standing in place next to Izuku and blocking the path as the crosswalk turned green. "I was never a good Hero, Izuku. I preferred to be a medic. If I had to fight villains, I refused to fight them fair. The only time I took to the field, it was when things had gone terribly, terribly wrong."

The dragon wrapped one arm around the crying child and pulled Izuku against his side. The young Midoriya could feel the creature's ribs underneath its scales.

"I can give you the tools and teach you how to use them." Alec admitted as Izuku continued to silently sob against him. "But it will be up to others to teach you -when- to use them. Is that alright?"

"Yes!" Izuku nearly bawled. His heart felt like it was in a vice and his head felt like it was full of clouds.

Someone believed in him! Someone told him that his dream wasn't just some childish fantasy!

Izuku couldn't reach all the way around the dragon's torso to wrap it in a desperate hug but he tried.

He could do it! He -would- do it!

He was going to be a Hero!