Chapter 38
Izuku would have liked to say he was surprised that Aizawa was in school the next school day two days later, a bandage over his eyes and an impressively dark scowl to match, but he wasn't. He really wasn't. Aizawa had apparently never gotten the memo about needing survival instincts.
Mina, who appeared to share that lack, had been the first to ask what had happened. Aizawa had turned his blind face to her, demonstrating an impressive spacial awareness, and flatly told her that it was a shaving accident.
"A…a shaving accident, sir?" Iida asked, so dumbfounded that he'd spoken out of turn. Aizawa nodded.
"I was contouring my eyebrows," he said, in a tone that suggested anyone else who asked might meet a similar shaving accident. Mina, after homeroom, cornered Izuku.
"Okay, spill," she said, "Because I know Aizawa's not the type of person to manscape, and even if he was he wouldn't miss his eyebrows."
Izuku would have protested, but honestly Aizawa was absolutely not the type of person to manscape. He didn't even look like he washed, sometimes, so there were other hills to die upon. Nicer hills. Better groomed hills.
"What makes you think I'd know?" he said instead, and got an appropriately withering look from Mina in response. Fair enough. Izuku considered telling her how Aizawa had managed to get Trigger all over himself, with the aim of puncturing any ego Aizawa might have built up, but decided against it. It really hadn't been Aizawa's fault – even Izuku hadn't expected Saunders to be so crazed that he'd gas everyone in the room and take the chance – and besides, Izuku didn't want to be in line for Aizawa's vengeance.
"An accident on a patrol, he told me," Izuku compromised, "It's not permanent."
There shouldn't even be any permanent damage, from what Izuku had heard, but it had taken hours for the Trigger to wear off and by the end Aizawa's eyes had been dry and blood-red. With proper care and corrective eye-drops he'd recover, from what Aizawa had said. Izuku was fifty-fifty on whether Aizawa was capable of following medical advice. They had at least learned what Erasure did under the effect of Trigger: Izuku had been hoping that it would completely turn off Quirks until the victim was exposed to Erasure again, but nothing in his life could be so convenient. Triggered Erasure simply had a lag time, shifting from deactivating Quirks who were exposed to deactivating exposed Quirks for between fifteen minutes and half an hour. Could be better, could be worse.
"An accident," Mina said flatly, "That left the guy whose Quirk is all about his eyes temporarily blind."
"Yes."
"And you allegedly weren't there."
"Nope."
"And there's nothing you can tell me, to give me the inside scoop?"
Izuku opened his mouth to say no, and paused. It wasn't like Mina really believed his whole story, and even if she did he could probably just pass a little bit of advice off as general paranoia.
"Just – listen, maybe this is nothing. But maybe it's something. From what I heard there was gas involved, so I'd maybe just…I'd think about getting a gas mask. And probably for your whole family, too."
"I won't lie, Midori, that doesn't sound like a 'maybe nothing'."
"Depends on what your life's like normally, right? Besides, having a personal gas mask is a good habit to have. Just in case."
"Do you – do you have a personal gas mask?"
Izuku stopped walking, so affronted by the question that he couldn't keep moving while answering it. He set both hands on Mina's shoulders and looked her in the eyes.
"Mina. Not only do I have a personal gas mask, I have a favourite gas mask. And it's still less my favourite than my helmet is."
"I hate not being able to tell if you're serious or genuinely in the grip of a paranoid episode."
"Two things can be true at once," Izuku said brightly, resuming his walk, "You could probably ask Yaoyorozu, you know. I'm sure she'd provide you one. Or you could ask Hatsume."
"Yeah there's no way I'm asking Hatsume," Mina said, "You're the only one who can tolerate her…Hatsumeness. I'd feel kinda bad asking Momo for one for free, though. We could hold a fundraiser, maybe?"
"We should make it a class thing, ribbit," Tsuyu supplied, "Like a class-bonding exercise."
Izuku felt they weren't taking this as seriously as it maybe deserved to be, but so long as they really did prepare it was fine. Hopefully nothing would happen, but from past experience saying 'ah, it'll be fine' was an excellent way to get a play by play of your worst fears. There was, perhaps, an argument to be made that he was overselling the danger due to past trauma. Yes, the fact that he'd scouted the homeless shelter again because he'd felt like it had been a good place to put a cache was a little weird. Yes, crawling around storage sheds and looking for spaces in the foundations was odd. No, he wasn't going to get therapy over his issues. It would be fine.
That line of thought happily dismissed, Izuku refocused on what they were actually doing. Today Aizawa had been supposed to lead a Hero lesson, since All Might was taking the afternoon classes, but given Aizawa's blindness it was a toss-up as to whether he'd do the lesson normally, blindfold them all and make them practice combat out of some sick sense of fairness, or…or, as Izuku followed his classmates into the Training Ground and saw class 1-B waiting, actually reach out for help.
Aizawa asking for help? Unprecedented. You really could teach an old dog new tricks. The classes didn't mingle, but Izuku waved to Kendo – she had managed to put together an after-school club in the wake of the Summer Camp Quirkless tournament, though Izuku had only been able to attend infrequently. Nonetheless, Kendo was okay. Most of 1-B was, really: even Monoma wasn't too bad once you realised he rarely meant what he said. And, really, all the things he'd said at the Quirkless tournament had served their purpose. He'd wanted to provoke Izuku into making the first move, and it had worked. It was just that Izuku had been a lot better than he was.
Still, Izuku had grown up with Bakugo. Monoma was positively pleasant in comparison.
"Alright, class," Vlad King said, his booming voice easily carrying over the hubbub, "Since the Summer Camp went so well, we've decided to do more joint training sessions. Not only will this allow you to get a more varied range of opponents in the appropriate scenarios, it will give you more people to practice with, as required of any Hero."
"Don't get too comfortable," Aizawa added sourly. He looked ghoulish in the light, the bandages over his eyes very white even against his pale skin. 1-B, in particular, looked discomfited. Izuku idly wondered if the faint streaks under Aizawa's eyes were actually tear marks, or if they'd been added for effect. Looking a little closer, Izuku was pretty sure they were fake. Aizawa was a sick man.
"Getting out of your comfort zone is important," Aizawa continued, "Because otherwise when you do leave it, you won't manage well. Today we're going to run some traversal practice, just as we did Super Moves."
Izuku stayed very quiet, taking a private amusement in watching Aizawa sweep his sightless gaze across the group. If Aizawa was looking for him to demonstrate he'd be disappointed.
"Kendo," Aizawa said flatly, his gaze getting remarkably close to where Kendo was given that she hadn't spoken in the last minute or so, "There's an obstacle course behind us. Why don't you demonstrate what I mean when I say traversal practice?"
"What he means," Vlad interrupted, "Is get to the other side as quickly as possible. We won't be having you race just yet, but it's about learning the most efficient movement using your Quirk – or not, as the case may be."
Aizawa shifted, his scarf snapping slightly as he moved. Vlad seemed unperturbed. Kendo glanced around, at her classmates, and then shrugged and moved to the front. The obstacle course wasn't that hard: it was designed to look like a street, which was interesting enough, but it was obviously designed to provide interesting terrain more than being accurate. There weren't many streets with so many carefully placed handholds. Nor many with so many conveniently placed pipes, actually.
Kendo was surprisingly good at parkour. Maybe Izuku shouldn't have been so surprised, because she was an extremely good Hero student and probably understood the value of mobility, but she'd always seemed more like a 'keep your feet on the ground' kind of person. Then again, he was positively surrounded by prodigies here – UA was the top Hero school in the country for a reason.
Mina nudged him.
"What do you think?" she whispered, "She's pretty good, isn't she?"
Most of Kendo's movement was just regular parkour – 'just', like it was a completely normal thing to do - but she made up for any gaps with strategic use of her Quirk, enlarging her hands in order to cross gaps and latch onto holds that would otherwise have been out of reach. It was clever and it was quick, especially for someone who's Quirk wasn't about movement. Izuku nodded in agreement with Mina.
"She's practiced," he said, "Practiced a lot."
"You think you could beat her?" Mina asked, teasing. Izuku rolled his eyes.
"1-B won't make a bet with you again, not after the Summer Camp."
"They've just got no faith in themselves," Mina said, shaking her head in mock sorrow, "But seriously. You and Kendo, if you raced. You think you could win?"
Izuku watched Kendo finish the course, noting the tiny hesitations and pauses. Only tiny, but still present, still noticeable. Nobody was perfect, after all, especially not Izuku himself.
"In a built up area, yeah," Izuku said, "I probably could. Somewhere flatter, probably not. My grapple needs elevation to work effectively."
This particular course was probably right on the edge, actually. Izuku was good at moving because his grapple let him bypass obstructions at ground level, take advantage of connecting buildings. But there was a reason the Batmobile and other various vehicles existed: moving by grapple alone was honestly a little slow. Izuku still missed Jason's bike, although the last time he'd taken the car with Aizawa he'd noticed a couple in the UA garage that had drawn his eye. They'd barely looked used, which was just a crying shame. Nedzu probably wouldn't object too much to Izuku taking one out for a joyride, would he?
Kendo had landed and Aizawa spoke again.
"To be able to move is key for a Hero," he said flatly, "There's no point in being the best combatant or rescuer in the world if you never reach the disaster in time. This Training Ground has been designed to let you test out movement and understand your limits. Don't do anything stupid, though. It's not completely built to protect you from yourselves."
Ever the charmer, Izuku thought as lights ground on overhead and revealed the city training ground beyond. Robots buzzed about, ready to catch or assist anyone who fell, and Aizawa stepped aside. It didn't take long for the two classes to flood towards the city, almost as excited for this as they had been for the Super Moves, but Mina and Kirishima lingered next to Izuku.
"You know, Midori," Mina said, "You said you'd teach me to use a grapple, right?"
"Right," Izuku agreed, anticipating her question, "You want to join, Kirishima?"
"Absolutely," Kirishima agreed, a beaming smile that almost matched Mina's on his face, "Running through things is cool, but running over things is almost as good. You, uh, is it hard to learn?"
Izuku looked him over thoughtfully. Kirishima was larger than Izuku, bulkier and taller, but it wasn't like that was definitely an issue. Jason hadn't been a small man, and Bruce had been massive. Damian had been pretty big, too, and they'd all been plenty acrobatic. Kirishima might need a while to get used to it, though.
"We'll start off with the easy things," Izuku said, to Kirishima's evident relief. Part of Izuku, a sadistic part, was tempted to do it the old fashioned way: find a roof, give Kirishima a grapple, and give him the choice of flying or splatting. He'd be fine, given his Quirk, but it was a bit much. There was not coddling people you were training and then there was being a dickhead about it. Izuku looked over to Tsuyu, who didn't need a grapple.
"You coming, Tsuyu? Or are you going to practice on your own?"
Tsuyu shrugged.
"I wanted to speak to Sero, about the way he swings, ribbit. I'll see you all later."
She wandered away, and Izuku turned back to the other two. Mina was nearly vibrating with excitement.
"So how do we start," she asked, "Jumping off a rooftop? Finding a gap we can jump over? Learning to do a somersault?"
"Can you do a somersault?" Izuku asked. Mina gave him a thumbs up.
"Sure can!"
"Great. You don't need to."
Izuku ignored the dramatic way Mina slumped and the way Kirishima exaggeratedly wiped his brow, setting off for a building.
"The most important part of using a grapple," he called over his shoulder, "Is actually hitting a target. Keeping hold of the grapple afterwards is nice, but if you don't hit anything you don't go anywhere. So let's find a building."
Finding a building wasn't hard, since there were plenty of them about. Finding a building that was the right shape was a little harder, with enough shape to make it interesting without having so many greebles on it that it could tangle someone. Izuku did find one, but it took a couple of minutes. It wasn't a large building, about two stories, with a couple of drain pipes but nothing else. It wasn't perfect – if there was one thing to be said for Gotham, it was that the city's own inimitable sense of style was good for finding grapple points – but for two people who had very little experience it would work.
"This one," he said, pointing up, "Something easy. And to start off, being able to hit the target."
Izuku pulled his grapple, aiming up without really looking, and loosed it. He heard the faint thud of the line latching onto the lip of the roof. He turned and looked up, noting how it had hit just below the lip.
"You want to aim below," he said, "Grapple up, get your hand over the lip, pull yourself over. You can try to arc the hook onto the roof itself, I guess, but it's a lot harder. And, personally, I don't advise being dragged across a the top of a small wall."
He clicked the second button that detached the grapple, letting it rewind, and held it out to Mina.
First lesson.
"This is harder than it looks," Kirishima said a couple of attempts later. Most of them had been too low, although one had overshot: Mina was doing better, probably because of her handgun training with Snipe, but she still tended to aim low. Izuku nodded.
"Consider yourselves lucky," he said dryly, "This one sticks to things it hits. The one I first trained with had an actual hook on the end and you had to loop it properly. And detach it afterwards, actually. Much slower."
"Wait. How does that work if you're, you know, swinging through buildings?"
"With great difficulty," Izuku said, though he realised that his tone was more wistful than anything else.
"If you're swinging from buildings with a hook version, you need tall buildings," Izuku continued, "You have to swing far enough up for the hook to come loose and have enough airtime to be able to retract the hook and fire again. If you've got two grapples it's easier – with the one you're using, you can do the same as Sero does and just alternate. Pretty tough on the shoulders, though."
"That sounds stressful," Kirishima said, going slightly green. Izuku didn't blame him – grappling at high speed wasn't for everyone. Kirishima wasn't a quitter, though, so he kept going. The grapple was a bit easier to shoot accurately than a gun, since you could track the path of the line to tell where you were shooting at, and it didn't take long for Mina and Kirishima to get the grasp of it.
"Great," Izuku said, "Now we can go up to the roof and practice jumping off and firing our grapple on the way down."
Kirishima choked. Even Mina looked concerned and Izuku laughed.
"I'm kidding," he said, "We'll start with going up, to get the hang of, well, hanging on. Jumping off buildings and grappling mid-fall is a bit more advanced than we've got time for in this lesson."
"Wait, so how are we going to learn?" Mina asked. Izuku looked up.
"We're going to need a bigger building," he said thoughtfully, "The thing is, getting used to it – you want to ascend and descend a couple of times, get used to it. And then you want to do it from the rooftops, attach your grapple and swing down. And then the last thing you do is, you know, tricks. Triple somersaults and that kind of thing."
Jason, secretly, had always wanted to manage the quadruple somersault that Dick had sometimes showed off. He'd never managed it, though. A minor regret, though a niggling one.
"Man," Kiri said a short while later, raking a hand across his brow, "This is – this is tougher than I expected, you know?"
Izuku did know. Kiri was in superb shape, as were pretty much all of 1-A, but grappling around required a kind of athleticism and acrobatics that Kiri wasn't used to. Mina was doing better, but she was sweating as well and they'd taken a brief break.
"How did you even learn how to do this?" Kiri asked, shaking his arms out, "It's a lot more in-depth than I expected."
How did he learn. For a moment all Izuku could think of was those early Robin days, Bruce's quiet confidence and steady insistence that he learn correctly, the patience to teach a boy who, unlike Dick Grayson, hadn't been flying since almost before he could walk. The pang of nostalgia hit harder than Izuku expected – shaking it off, he could barely believe that he'd managed to get two separate sets of parent issues. Despite everything that had happened later, despite the Red Hood and Batman and all their quarrels, Bruce had been a good dad.
"I saw it in a comic book," Izuku lied, "And I practiced until I got it right. Lucky you, right? You get to avoid all the mistakes I made when I was first trying it out. And parkour has internet courses."
"How do you learn parkour from an internet course?" Mina said, staring at him. Izuku shrugged.
"Very carefully."
Mina shook her head, picking up the grapple and going back to practicing now that she'd caught her breath, and both Izuku and Kirishima watched. Izuku wasn't too concerned about her falling – there were a couple of robots hovering around, and Vlad King had come by to watch about fifteen minutes earlier, saying nothing – but he had a secondary grapple ready anyway, and he'd taken off his left vambrace in case he needed the back-up in his prosthetic. Mina was doing fine, though, grappling to the building roof and swinging back down to the ground with enthusiasm.
"Mina said there were people following you, the other day," Kiri said. His tone was almost conversational, but there was a tightness to it that wasn't quite right. A worry. Izuku nodded.
"Yeah, it was a bit of an adventure," he said. He didn't ask why – Kirishima folded his arms, still looking concerned.
"I – look, man. I know you can't tell me about everything you do, operational security and stuff. I get it. But you know that we've got your back, right? Me and Mina, and Tsuyu, and the rest of the class if needed. If you need us, just say the word and we'll be there."
"I know, Kiri," Izuku said, smiling against the painful wash of gratitude in his throat and chest, "I know."
Kirishima nodded again.
"Yeah, well. Just don't forget, right? That's what friends are for."
"I won't forget, Kiri. I promise."
He wouldn't forget.
After the school day was over, Izuku didn't have anything to do other than go home. His Mom wouldn't be home for a while, however, and any patrols would be curtailed with Aizawa out of action, unless Aizawa really was intent on a grisly death. Needing to kill time, then, Izuku detoured to the Support Lab, where he found Hatsume talking to Melissa Shield. Serendipitous, in a way. He went through the usual, terrifying small talk with Hatsume and then got right down to brass tacks.
"The Quirk Amplifier that Wolfram used," he said, "You have the plans, right?"
Melissa nodded.
"Enough of them, yeah," she said, "Although we aren't about to build another one. Why?"
"We…you talked about maybe building a Quirk Dampener, at I-Island. I was wondering if you'd made any progress. My teacher and I were out on patrol last night and ran into a man who was making Trigger, but in a gaseous form. He exposed my teacher to it – it didn't just enhance his Quirk, it forcibly activated it. I'm worried about a mass exposure. In theory, a Quirk Dampener could, you know."
"Mitigate the effects?" Melissa completed, her brow wrinkling in thought. Hatsume tapped a foot against the table leg, absently fitting together something that looked a lot like a drone.
"It would need a wide area of effect," Melissa said eventually, "Which the Amplifier didn't have. The Dampener is probably possible, at the very least. The principles should be the same. But it might be that this Trigger will just bypass the whole thing. I'll try, and I'll ask my Dad about it."
"He's okay?" Izuku asked. Last he'd heard David Shield was under a quiet house arrest: while I-Island hadn't wanted to make a whole show of one of their most important members becoming a criminal, they'd also not been willing to let him off the hook. Melissa shrugged.
"He says the time alone gives him time to think and invent," she said, "He's being watched, of course, but he's mostly just. Well, repentant."
An actual reformed villain, what a thing. What a day. Although, admittedly, this wasn't quite the same as a life-long villain like Harley repenting. This was more like Barry Allen or Hal Jordan, a former hero finally realising that they'd been damn stupid and they should stop. Still, better than doubling down on the villainy. Izuku wasn't going to criticise someone for having some moral improvement.
"Why do you need a dampening device?" Hatsume asked idly, still putting together her drone, "Can't you make an anti-Trigger gas?"
Izuku opened his mouth, thought about it, and closed his mouth again.
"I guess," he said slowly, "I don't think it exists now, but…I guess it depends on how Trigger works?"
"I'm not a chemist," Melissa said thoughtfully, "But maybe you could make something that, well, it wouldn't even need to reduce a Quirk or whatever. It just needs to block Trigger from working, or maybe even something that could counteract Trigger directly. Denature the gas? There are some chemists on I-Island who I could speak to."
"And you could build drones for the delivery system," Hatsume said, waving her own around – Izuku wasn't convinced it was a coincidence, "So people don't need to go into the Trigger."
She peered owlishly at Izuku.
"Not that it would matter for you, Greeny. Immune, or whatever."
"I'd trust my helmet filters over just being immune to Trigger any day, Hatsume," Izuku said. Hatsume nodded.
"And you should," she said, "I made those myself!"
"And they've never let me down," Izuku noted. Hatsume looked vaguely offended.
"Of course they haven't, I told you that I made them myself."
Hatsume paused, looking thoughtful.
"If we could get a gas, I could add it to a grenade launcher," she said, enthusiasm creeping frighteningly into her tone, "You know, Greeny, I still think you could fit one into your arm. Just think of being able to transform your arm and shoot people, it would be great!"
Somewhere behind Izuku Power Loader whined. Izuku took a step away from Hatsume, as unobtrusively as possible.
"The only problem would be ammo," Melissa said brightly and Izuku quietly cursed being outnumbered – Power Loader was too traumatised by Hatsume to be useful in this fight – "But it would be a great way of subtly getting the anti-Trigger gas into place! Or even any other kind of grenade, really."
"I don't think taking off my gauntlet and coat and vambrace and rolling up my sleeve while my arm turns into a cannon is subtle," Izuku tried. Melissa wrinkled her nose.
"Well, I suppose."
"Subtlety is overrated anyway," Hatsume declared, "You just need to change your costume to compensate!"
One of these days, Izuku wouldn't feel mortal dread upon seeing these two start to invent. And on that day he would retire to a mountain and spend the rest of his life as a hermit, because he'd know that his survival instincts were no longer functioning.
"I don't think that would make it better, Hatsume," Izuku said, frantically casting around for a way to distract her, "Did Tsuyu come to you to talk about changing her costume? She said she wanted to make it more armoured."
It worked, thankfully, and Hatsume went back to fiddling around with her drone. The poor thing's lights flashed a couple of times before going off and she frowned down at it.
"Yep," she said, "She was talking about using the Hatsume-Midoriya Gel Matrix, which should be fine, but I was thinking of making a water specific version. Right, Melissa?"
Somehow Hatsume knowing Melissa's name and getting it right was more frightening than anything else.
"It should be possible," Melissa said, "It's quite the advancement, but that doesn't mean it can't get better."
Hatsume turned back towards Melissa, both of them getting more and more technical as the conversation went on, and Izuku breathed a sigh of relief and quietly extricated himself. He walked silently across the room to Power Loader, who was sitting rigidly at his desk. He was still holding the tranquiliser rifle, Izuku noticed, although he looked a little less unhinged than the last time Izuku had seen him.
"Escaped, huh?" Power Loader asked. He gingerly set down the rifle and Izuku relaxed a fraction.
"Hatsume's almost finished her first production prototype for your pistol – sniper conversion thing," Power Loader said, "Probably be done in the next day or so if she can focus, which she usually can once she's finished talking. Shield was talking about a different version though, like a theoretical version of your pistols that just interlocks without needing a separate frame. I think they might be competing. It's almost worse than when they're working together."
Izuku nodded sadly.
Power Loader seemed to get over his moment, however, because he brightened slightly and reached into his desk.
"Also, Midoriya, got something for you here. Just finished it this morning, fully tested."
Power Loader reached down, rummaging through his desk until he came out with a handful of small discs, perhaps five resting in his hand. He tipped them onto the desk, keeping only one.
"These are those sonic glass breakers you asked for," he said, lifting up the last one, "Easy to use, you squeeze each flat side and they activate."
Power Loader stepped around the desk, crossing quickly to a cleared section of the lab and wheeling out a stand with a flat pane of glass on it. He held up the disc, squeezing it on both sides, and then pressed the disc onto the glass and stepped back. There was a faint, high pitched whining noise and, in a single instant, the glass shattered into miniscule shards. Power Loader brushed his hands together, grinning.
"Good, right?"
"Incredible," Izuku said, "Exactly what I wanted."
"I do good work sometimes," Power Loader said cheerfully, "It was a pretty interesting challenge. Especially because laminated glass is a thing, getting it to shift correctly through frequencies that'll shatter all the different kinds of glass, plus plastic, plus making sure it shatters and doesn't leave any shards to slice you up? Enjoyed it, really."
Power Loader was just as unhinged as Hatsume, Izuku had always known, but it still caught him a little off guard when the man demonstrated it. Power Loader held out one of the discs to Izuku, who took it.
Absently Izuku weighed the little disc in his hand, wondering if it could be disguised as a coin, or a medal, or a charm or something. It wasn't something that Bruce or Jason had done all that much, given that they usually used their gear while in costume, but Jason had seen James Bond. Hell Izuku had seen James Bond, although the contemporary version of the films wasn't quite the same. Bond with a Quirk didn't hit the same.
And, admittedly – and this was an issue that applied to Jason's world as well – supervillains with ludicrous plans weren't quite the same on screen when it was entirely possible that it had been done in real life as well. But the point was the same. And with Izuku's infiltrations of the MLA and sort of Humarise, he might even have the chance to use that kind of equipment. It wasn't quite the sharp dressed, smooth talking, international man of mystery infiltration of the Bond films, but Izuku would take what he could get.
The disc really was almost exactly the weight and shape of a coin, he mused. There had been a reflex exercise he'd used, back when he was getting used to this prosthetic. Izuku flipped the disc in the air, caught it on one finger, roll it down and along and walk it across the knuckles. Almost perfect. Almost identical. Izuku glanced at Power Loader, who looked slightly smug, and wondered if it was on purpose as he twisted his hand, letting the disc slip down and out of sight. An easy bit of sleight of hand, but usually a crowd pleaser.
If only everything was so easy. He pocketed them anyway. Just in case.
In the aftermath of multiple attacks on their bases, the MLA were beginning to withdraw into themselves. Izuku suspected they had some kind of major base somewhere, somewhere that they controlled entirely, but they weren't giving that location away to him. Instead his next meeting was at Chitose's place of work, a news station that was deceptively well protected. Izuku wasn't sure if the MLA were banking on the League not knowing about the place, or if they were counting on Shigaraki being reluctant to attack somewhere that wasn't Hero related. Izuku didn't share their confidence, but when he arrived he couldn't help but notice that the place was subtly fortified, and there were a lot more staff than he'd have expected. He didn't pause as he approached, but something didn't feel right.
Maybe it was paranoia, but Izuku just had a bad feeling about it. He didn't have to worry about Tatsuyuki, at least, because the man was still in intensive care. It was a bit of a miracle that he wasn't in the morgue, but if Izuku took villains or heroes surviving ludicrous injuries as proof of divine favour he'd have gone screaming insane a long time ago. He walked through the front door and gave his name, and the receptionist narrowed her eyes. It was a small movement, but Izuku saw it. He would have liked to say that it awoke long-dormant paranoia, but unless you considered a couple of hours a long time that would have been a lie.
"Miss Chitose is waiting for you in her office," the receptionist told him, "It's on the third floor, I'll get someone to take you up. Security, you understand."
Izuku did understand, and he wasn't happy about it. The building had five floors, from what Izuku could tell, which made the third floor right in the middle. It wasn't too high to jump if he needed to, but he'd definitely be pursued. He'd managed it in Overhaul's base by causing a distraction and being generally underestimated, but he couldn't count on that being the same here. A burly security guard escorted Izuku through a set of doors, locked with a key-card, and up the first flight of stairs. Izuku attempted to make conversation, nervous in the way Akatani Mikumo would probably be, but after a string of monosyllabic replies he gave up and walked in silence, watching the guard out of the corner of his eye.
The guard looked, mostly, like a normal hired security man. Pale blue shirt, black slacks, black shoes. There was a collapsible baton hidden at the back of his belt, and a taser on his left hip. Left hip was unusual, left handed? Not that it really mattered. In good health, as though he worked out regularly, and Izuku wondered if the MLA required a certain level of fitness. They probably did, it would only be sensible. The man was trying to look relaxed, but there was a certain tension in his shoulders, the way he tapped his fingers against his key-card, that gave him away. Izuku didn't like that one bit. Why would the guy be nervous? It wasn't like Izuku was a serial killer. Izuku didn't know what his Quirk was. There were no external indicators that Izuku could see, but a lot of Quirks didn't have many, especially when they were fairly limited.
Two more flights of stairs. Izuku wondered why they wouldn't take an elevator, but maybe they were out of action? At least he knew that there were stairs he could take in a hurry. The third floor was busy, although it was strangely quiet. There were offices, most of them open plan from what Izuku could see from the corridor, and they were occupied but there was a lack of chatter. Maybe Izuku was thinking too old fashioned, but he'd expected the click of keyboards, the chatter of voices, editors calling across the room, the ringing of phones. Instead there was just the faintest rumble of quiet voices and the feeling of eyes on his back.
There was a tv on the wall of one office, broadcasting breaking news. Izuku thought that it was a little ironic, given that this was a news agency, but he supposed it was one way to stay current. And right now it was broadcasting a…it was broadcasting a live feed of All Might confronting a villain, on the other side of Japan. A second feed, starring Endeavour. Several more, with other Heroes. All of them dealing with a spate of what the announcer called Trigger induced violence.
All of the major Heroes, away and in action. Izuku's paranoia was hitting the roof and he strongly considered making a run for it right then and there, but he hadn't gotten this far by being a quitter. If, by some miracle, all of this was just a coincidence then running could out him. Worse, it could make the MLA make their move before anyone was ready. He had to stick it out, and if something went wrong? Well, then it went wrong. He'd deal with it as it came.
Chitose's office was large, open. Her desk, with several mugs filled with pens and pencils to give it character, sat in the middle of the room with a large window behind her. Even considering she might soon be his enemy, the very thought made Izuku wince. Putting your back to a window? Aesthetically pleasing. Terrible for security, as Black Mask had once learned. But in this case, it was good. It meant that Izuku, who did have several of Power Loader's sonic discs tucked up each sleeve, had a way out if it came to a fight.
Izuku wasn't sure why he was still kidding himself.
"Akatani," Chitose said brightly as the door clicked shut behind him, the lid of his coffin closing, "It's so nice of you to come here. And on such short notice!"
Three guards. One directly behind him, one to his left, one to his right. Chitose in front. Maybe Chitose was overconfident, but she'd put up a good fight against that Nomu. Maybe she was just regular confident.
"I'm always ready to help," Izuku said, aiming for happily sycophantic and only managing vague sarcasm. Chitose beamed anyway.
"You are, aren't you?" she said, "You've been very helpful so far. Not, perhaps, to us. But helpful."
Yeah, okay. They almost certainly knew. And there was nobody close by to help, but Izuku hoped that Nedzu would already be gathering help. There was a faint crackle, a quiet pop in his ears, the spectacles that he wore fuzzed and Izuku automatically pulled the glasses off. Chitose continued to smile.
"Sorry," she said, "Just a little sweep, to make sure that there aren't any listening devices. That's not a problem for you, right?"
Smug villains weren't as bad as philosophical ones, but they were damn close. Izuku wondered if Chitose was the type of person to torture alleged traitors herself, or if she always delegated it. Delegation, he thought. She didn't seem to mind fighting, but she struck him as the kind of person to stand back and watch a beating. She'd be the one asking questions. The interrogator.
Izuku wasn't blind to the fact that, right now, Chitose was in front of him and three thugs were behind him. In this situation, he was the interrogatee.
"No," he said in reply, pasting on a sickly smile, "I don't have any listening devices."
Like she was going to buy that at this point. But acting pathetic might be his saving grace here. If the guards and more importantly Chitose would underestimate him, so much the better. Chitose sighed, resting her elbows on her desk and lacing her fingers together. Inanely, Izuku noticed that her laptop was closed and pushed to one side, and her monitor to the other. Freeing space.
"There's no point in pretending anymore, Akatani," she said, smiling sadly, "We know."
Okay. Okay, well, this was bad. Izuku glanced at the window, but it was obviously reinforced. If he ran right at it he'd be more likely to break on impact than it would, so he'd need a clean shot from one of his sonic discs to break. The door, then. Either that or taking out everyone in the room, but Izuku wasn't especially confident in that one. Especially Chitose.
Chitose's Quirk, whatever she called it, was activated by touch. It allowed her to make objects, and people, explode. And – and this was the most concerning part – it lingered. Neither Izuku nor Nedzu knew how long it would linger, or if it could be dispelled by Erasure, or how far away it could be activated from. Izuku thought, however, that given he hadn't exploded while just out and about there was a good chance that it wore off. It would also explain why Chitose was so touchy-feely all the time: constantly applying and re-applying her Quirk. So Izuku couldn't get touched.
Easier said than done. Alright. First option: talk your way out.
"You know, um, you know what, Miss Chitose?" Izuku asked. He couldn't look at the goons behind him, but he remembered them from his entrance. Chitose obviously wasn't taking too many chances, bringing guards, and she knew something of how he fought. But only something.
"We know you're a spy, kid, and we know you're the Red Hood," growled one of the guards. A heavy hand landed on his shoulder.
Ah, fuck.
Okay. Izuku forced down the urge to lash out, waiting for a better chance. A better chance that would only come if he had time, which meant buying time. Which meant muddying the waters, and a conversation with Nedzu, a few days ago, popped into his mind.
'We don't know who could be working for All For One,' Nedzu had said, 'He's had so long to worm his way in, and he's the sort of person to enjoy an overcomplicated plan. Simply for his own amusement.'
The way the Principal had smiled had left Izuku in no doubt that Nedzu was just the same, but it might help him here. Only one way to find out.
"I didn't want to do it," he said immediately, still relying on his character of being easily rattled, "He said he'd give me back my Quirk if I helped him! Please, please, you have to believe me, I just wanted to be useful!"
A grunt of confusion from behind him, the fingers slackening. Chitose narrowed her eyes and came to her feet, hands shifting from movie-villain interlacing to being planted on the desk.
"Are you saying you're working for All For One? You, Red Hood, the Hero student?"
Well, it had been worth a shot. But it probably wasn't worth ruining Red Hood's reputation for.
"Yeah," Izuku said, smiling queasily and trying to look as harmless as possible, "It seems insane, doesn't it?"
"Yes," Chitose said, "Especially because the man who told us about you almost certainly works for All For One."
Well, that was a remarkably brief monologue. Izuku went slack in surprise, slumping suddenly, and the guard missed his grab. Izuku slid down, eyes narrowing, felt the icy chill of adrenaline flood every fraction of his body and saw Chitose's eyes widen.
"Stop him!" she shouted, a moment before Izuku lunged back and drove his elbow into the guard's groin.
Step one of villainous henchmanry: wear a cup. Chitose was lightning fast, twisting to her desk and snatching a pen. She threw it with frightening accuracy, right at Izuku, but he was already moving, pirouetting around the guard and using him as a human shield. Blood splashed his face, hot and sickly and stinging with fragments of splintered bone, but he'd live. The guard wouldn't, but for a precious instant his body was still protecting Izuku. Pull the baton from the back of the belt with his left hand, snap it open, turn to the second oncoming guard and swing hard up, right into the chin. Something broke. It wasn't the baton. The third, blocked by the body of the first, swore loudly and ineffectively.
The second guard reeled away, spitting blood and tooth fragments, and Izuku pulled the taser from the first guards hip as he fell, levelling it as Chitose, dropping the baton to flick one of his sonic discs out. She yelped and dropped behind her desk, the wire snapping above her, and Izuku heard her snarl, almost buried under the brief whine and the crash as the window shattered. He could have run for it, but Chitose was in the way.
"Have it your way!" she shouted. Izuku wasn't sure what other way there was, really, but smart quips were abandoned as Chitose lurched up and shoved half the contents of her desk at him. She couldn't have touched all of them, but seeing a mug full of pencils go off like a grenade, luckily aimed off to his left, was more than enough to convince him that discretion was definitely the better part of valour here. Izuku reached into his sleeve and pulled out his pepper gas capsules, scattering them to fill the room, and bolted for the door. The corridor outside was empty, but the quiet murmuring was starting to turn into shouts and as Izuku ran for the stairs the intercom crackled and squealed, Chitose's voice coming through loud and clear.
"Akatani is running, stop him! Stop hi-"
The way her voice cracked into a jagged, choking cough was a momentary satisfaction, but a satisfaction nonetheless. She must have gotten a good lungful of the smoke, and Izuku let that thought buoy him as the first MLA members started to flood out of the offices.
Go through them. Get to the stairs.
Izuku set his jaw and charged.
In one of the only saving graces of the situation, the stairway wasn't blocked by a security door. Izuku didn't know if it had been built that way on purpose or if the building had been something else before the news company took over, a school perhaps, but the stairway was at one end of the building, in a square section. The stairs ran around the edges of the walls, with a gap in the middle, and walls topped with railings. A gap in the middle that, for Izuku, was jumpable. So. Leap up onto the railing, jump to the higher one, head up the stairs to the roof or a free section that he could escape through. Sounded easy, now to do it.
Four people, running at him down the corridor. Get through those first, Izuku thought, sizing them up in moments. Two security, two workers, all MLA members or close enough. Go through them.
Duck under the baton swing of the first, the most eager. Elbow into the inside of the thigh, left palm to the chin, shove him into his friend. First worker, second enemy, hand coming down with fingers gleaming sharp and metallic, parry at the wrist, right palm to nose, heel to knee on the third, jump, kick off the wall, right elbow to left temple on the second security guy, grab the third guy by the head and collar, slam his head into the wall.
Four down and Izuku was still running for the stairs, the yelling behind him becoming ever more frantic. That sort of thing didn't buy you friends, but he'd manage. And he'd better manage, because there were even more MLA henchmen ahead. Where did these people go? Jason had never had this many henchmen in his crime days, Izuku was jealous.
"He's fifteen!" Chitose roared from behind him, happily blocked by the crowd from throwing more explosives his way, "How hard can it be to grab one teenager! Get him!"
These people would go insane dealing with the Dynamic Duo. But Izuku didn't have a Bruce to crash through the window and start throwing hands with everyone in sight, so he was just going to have to rescue himself. Three more goons closed ranks in front of him, coming down the corridor in a wall of zealous lunatic, and Izuku briefly wondered how many he'd have to go through before they gave it up. Probably more than he could sustain, but he could manage a few more.
The three guards ahead moved forward in a practiced motion, the two on the flanks closing in with batons as the third one hung back slightly, cupping her hands in front of her mouth and exhaling a ball of bright orange flame that closed with Izuku at speed, closer and closer. Closer. Closer, and Izuku could feel the heat on his face as he dropped to his knees and slid under the flame, between the guards. The fire-breather stepped back, eyes widening, and Izuku tackled her as he came back to his feet, throwing his body weight into the woman's waist. They both went down but Izuku was readier, letting go of the woman to plant his hands on the ground and complete a handstand, flipping back onto his feet.
Turn, a guard swinging her baton, lean back so it whistled past his face, catch her wrist with his right hand, ball his left into a fist. The horror on her face, moments before his fist broke her elbow, red blood and white bone, pull the baton from her fingers and crack it across her face at eye level, kick her back. Twist to the right, block the second baton with his own, left fist to groin, step past the man as he bent over, baton to the back of the skull. The fire-breather was up, mouth opening wide, and Izuku threw his baton. It caught the woman in the centre of her forehead and her head jerked back, mouth snapping shut just as she let go of her fireball. Flame spouted from her nose, the corners of her eyes, she fell, shove the guard he'd probably concussed with the blow to the head into the oncoming crowd, watch them stumble and trip on each other.
Twist around, step away from the tangle and a security guard threw himself in a flying kick, both feet impacting harshly with Izuku's chest. Izuku was thrown backwards, into the stair railing, breath catching at the pain but he rode it out, both hands reaching back to the railing, feet still off the floor from the kick. Both hands caught and he snapped his whole body up, his own shoes hitting another guard in the chin and knocking him down, a handstand on the railing for a second before he pushed off in a graceful flip, up and around and latching on to the railing above, swinging up and over and onto the stairs, landing hard. A man sprinted to the railing, jumped onto the railing and off, sailing towards Izuku, and Izuku jumped to meet him, leading with a raised foot. A push from the impact, knocking him back onto the stairs and arresting the mans momentum, leaving him to fall, screaming. It wasn't far, but the crunch of his landing definitely marked a man out of action.
Izuku took a moment to flip the crowd the middle finger as they crushed onto the stairway to give chase, a daredevil smirk crawling unbidden onto his face. His chest hurt like hell, but the mob was behind him. Escape was near.
Izuku ran up another two flights of stairs, breath catching in his aching chest – nothing broken, but bruises still hurt – and swung onto the topmost level. The stairs didn't go all the way to the roof, but that was fine, he could find his way up. And he might not even need to do that: this level had glass windows on all sides, a fancy open office at the very summit of the building. Break one of those and he was home free.
Izuku saw the man who charged from a side room, but too late to do anything other than brace himself before arms latched around his waist and slammed him into the wall. More bruises to add to his collection, a scatter across his back and shoulders, but Izuku added one to his opponent by lifting his elbow and slamming it down, right between the shoulder blades. His elbow struck tough, leathery hide instead of yielding skin, the man just snarling and tightening his grip, arms like steel bands, crushing around Izuku's abdomen. Izuku gasped, gulped in a breath, another elbow. Another, to just as little effect as the first and he gritted his teeth. Brute force had failed, but something more precise might not. Izuku dragged in a breath, fighting against the compression of his lower chest, and rammed an extended finger into a nerve point.
It wasn't much good for incapacitating muscles. What it was good for, however, was excruciating pain.
The arms came loose, the man bellowing in pain and reaching up towards his neck, and Izuku let his legs crumple as he landed. He threw himself sideways, out from under the mans legs, and looked up into the eyes of a smirking woman, one hand outstretched.
Oh.
Izuku barely avoided the spray of liquid that erupted from her palm, an undignified belly-flop only just getting him out of the way, the tiles underneath him hissing and giving off an acrid smoke as the liquid bit into them – acid? Alkaline? Didn't matter. The man who'd grabbed him, bull-Quirk Izuku thought, cursed loudly.
"Be careful, Causticaller!" he barked, "You almost hit me!"
"Don't be such a baby, Minoa," the woman sang out, "It'll be fine!"
Causticaller and Minoa. Great. Those were some elite henchmen names. Behind him, Minoa was rising, Izuku could hear the creak of bones and tendons, and Causticaller was smiling, shaking her right hand to get the remains of her attack away from her skin. A weakness, maybe, though not one Izuku could rely on. Mina did the same thing sometimes, and Izuku knew that she could tolerate her own acid a lot longer than that. But Causticaller seemed reckless, and Izuku could use that.
As quick as the thought, he palmed one of his smoke capsules – regular smoke this time, not pepper, since he'd used all the pepper ones – and flicked it at Causticaller. She swiped at the air, catching it with the back of her hand, and as it shattered into a heavy cloud Izuku moved.
He zig-zagged across the corridor, Causticaller screeching angrily and spraying her acid or whatever it was at random. Some caught Izuku across the leg, hissing against his trousers, but he ignored it to close the distance. He would live, and a burn on his thigh was hardly important. He burst through the lingering smoke, right in Casuticaller's face, and saw the panic in her eyes.
Izuku's left hand closed around her extended left wrist, keeping the attacking hand away from him. His right hand caught the woman across the top of the nose, blinding her for a crucial moment when she launched her attack, the liquid spraying past his shoulder and onto the ground, leaving it slick for a moment before the tiles began to burn. Minoa stepped in the mess, his boots sliding but his momentum carried him onwards and he crashed into them both. Izuku, slightly off-centre, was knocked sharply across the corridor and pain burst white-hot across his shoulder, another bruise. The woman guard was less fortunate and the two of them rammed into a wall in a shower of dust and acid, putting them both out for the count as Izuku rolled back to his feet.
He flicked his wrist, two of the sonic discs flying out and hitting the broad window. A moment of tooth-aching, high pitched sound later and the window shattered, the cold wind howling through the new opening as Izuku twisted towards the window and right into a left hook. It caught him in the face, hard despite his flinch back, and he felt blood begin to stream from his nose. He bared his teeth in a snarl, tasting copper and iron, fury and hatred. The MLA man, another damned security guard, swung again and Izuku ducked under his fist, and snapped out his own punch, sharp and hard. It caught the man right in the liver, if the way he went down was any indication, and Izuku used him as a step to leap at the next, knee out. The guard caught Izuku's knee on crossed arms, pushed back hard to send Izuku back to the ground, came in with fists flying.
Right block, forearm to forearm, parry the right jab with his left hand by swatting the fist inwards, twist and throw an elbow, the man ducking under and in and pushing his right arm out of line, left fist slipping from the inside of Izuku's wrist towards his face with sudden speed and bright pain bloomed across his right eye but Izuku was still moving, stomping a foot down, catching the man's shin and foot and he retreated, skipping away from the roundhouse kick Izuku threw.
This guy was good. Damn good, too damn good and Izuku settled into a defensive posture, blinking tears from his right eye. That was going to leave a mark. The man, short and slender and wearing the same kind of uniform as all the other security, offered him a long, slow inclination of the head.
"I am Kiryu," he said, "And my Quirk is Swift Mastery. It allows me to become proficient in any physical skill, but I hope you believe me when I say my martial arts comes from training, rather than just my Quirk."
Oh good. Izuku loved fighting people who'd learned every skill under the sun. Just like fighting Sportsmaster, he told himself. Or, less encouragingly, Bruce. Maybe he could win, maybe he couldn't. Didn't matter. He didn't need to win, he needed to escape, and a plan was already forming in his mind.
"Defend yourself!" Kiryu snapped, and he was on Izuku like a hawk on a sparrow. Three jabs, stinging against Izuku's forearms before a knee came up, rising hard. Izuku blocked with both hands, hooked his fingers under the knee, twisted his leg around Kiryu's standing leg and took them both hard down, slamming into the ground. Shouts from the corridor, reinforcements approaching, Kiryu broke Izuku's grasp and twisted like an eel and Izuku broke his second set of smoke capsules. Pepper would have been better, again, but the thick and choking cloud burst around them and Izuku twisted away, flipping sideways and upright. A flick of his wrist and his useless phone clattered to the ground, making just enough noise that Kiryu lunged for it, right into Izuku's sideways kick. Kiryu hit the ground hard, wheezing, and Izuku grinned.
First rule of the Bat Clan. If you can't beat someone fairly, beat them unfairly. Kiryu was rolling over, not out of the fight yet, but Izuku was already running for the window.
"The window!" Kiryu yelled, coughing on the smoke, "The window!"
Izuku dived out of the window, feeling the air cold against his face, and twisted in mid-air to fire his grapple back at the building. It caught and swung him back in hard, towards the front of the building, and he let it snap free to launch himself through the broken window in Chitose's office. He landed hard, a shard of the broken chair digging into his leg and he gritted his teeth against the sting, but the cut was minor. Up onto the desk, push up the roof tiles and climb up. Dusty, dirty, cramped, but safe. Safe. For now.
Izuku closed his eyes against the ache in his chest, his nose, his eye, his heart. He didn't have any way to communicate with Nedzu and Aizawa. Maybe there would be a rescue on the way, maybe not, but he couldn't sit here and wait. He needed to get out of here, get away. Get home, make sure his Mom was safe. There was the slam of the door from below, a phone ringing, and Izuku opened his eyes.
"I know, I know," Chitose said, sounding harried, "I knew he was good, but I didn't think – he tore through our security, we need to up their training. Yes, I know. It was always a risk – there's always Plan B, sir. I had it set up for something like that. Whoever he's working for, they'll know the truth, but the public won't be able to – yes. Yes."
That didn't sound good. In fact, that sounded like a pre-prepared smear campaign, directed at him. At him, Red Hood, or at him, Izuku Midoriya? Izuku didn't know. He didn't even know if the MLA knew his actual identity, but he couldn't risk it. He needed to get out of here, get his gear, get home. Make sure his Mom was safe. He wriggled backwards, through the narrow space, and oriented himself for the corridors. He needed to get to the roof, and he did so by crawling awkwardly on elbows and knees through the roof space until he could drop carefully into the corridors again. The place was almost empty, everyone chasing the direction they'd assumed he'd gone, and so Izuku easily made his way to the roof. His chest hurt, his eye hurt and his nose hurt, but it would take a hell of a lot more to stop him from sneaking past some second-rate cultists. Still, they'd hurt him more than he'd expected. Not more than Kendo Rappa, but pretty good.
He went the opposite way off the roof, just in case, and took a train. In this case, very literally: he swung from a building and landed on top of it, deciding that getting a ticket was too slow. Train-surfing wasn't nearly so easy on these modern vehicles as it had been on the rickety old things Gotham had boasted, but it was fast. That was all that mattered.
That was all that mattered.
UA was busier than usual, for a night. Izuku knew why: it was because Kendo was holding one of her regular after-school sessions, and almost all of classes 1-A and 1-B would be there. In another circumstance Izuku would have cared, but in this one? In this one, getting home and keeping his Mom safe was all that mattered. He wasn't going to be orphaned for a third time. He cut through the labs, picking up his costume, and threw it on as he went. Not all of it, missing the armoured trousers, but everything he could put on easily he did and so when he burst into the training ground the classes were using the only other thing that was missing was his helmet, tucked under his arm.
From the way half the class flinched when they turned to look at him he belatedly realised that might have been a mistake.
"Midoriya what – what the hell?" Kendo asked, her usual calm cracking. Izuku forced his mouth open, the mask of blood from his nose that had crusted over his lips and chin breaking apart. He could feel the bruise around his eye blossoming into a spectacular black eye but ignored it.
"Some trouble for me," he said, "Aizawa, I need a car. Or a bike."
Aizawa, still blindfolded, tilted his head and reached into his pocket. Monoma stepped in front of Izuku, both hands raised.
"Okay, whoa. Whoa. Midoriya, what kind of trouble could be possibly be in – this isn't more 1-A dramatics, right?"
Monoma was probably joking about the dramatics, but Izuku was in no mood for comedy. He stepped forwards, left hand jabbing out so his finger stabbed into Monoma's chest.
"You want to know, Monoma? I'll tell you. I've been infiltrating a criminal gang, and they've found out that I'm a Hero. I barely escaped, and I don't know if they know my real identity or just that I'm a Hero, but if they do my Mom might be next on their hit list, and I don't know where the hell All Might is for a rescue, and I don't trust any Heroes other than him with this. So get the hell out of my way, or-"
"Izuku Midoriya!" called an authoritative voice from behind him and Izuku jammed his helmet on by pure instinct, feeling it snap into place. Nedzu's voice came through immediately, sounding more concerned than Izuku had heard in a long while.
"Mr Midoriya, do not be captured. Do not be captured. All Might is on his way to your home."
Izuku turned around to see three men in dark suits and sunglasses at the doorway to the Training Ground, all with hidden weapons. HSPC security, he thought, and for a moment relief that All Might would protect his Mom made him stupid.
"What?" he asked, and one of the men held up a badge.
"You need to come with us, for questioning," he said harshly. Izuku stared dumbly at him and, behind the man, a wall projector flicked on. Nedzu's work, maybe, but Izuku was too busy staring at the video as it ran. As it showed a man in a red helmet and a leather jacket pistol-whip a Hero to the ground, showed them pointing the pistol, pulling the trigger. Showed the blood splash. Showed the man taking off the helmet and smiling at the camera.
Showed Izuku taking off the helmet and smiling at the camera.
And, above, the breaking news title, the little name Chitose barely visible in the corner. The title scrolled across the projection, damning and garish in bloody crimson.
'RED HOOD: MURDERER!'